STRAY LEAVES OF 
LITERATURE 



by/ 
FREDERICK SAUNDERS 

AUTHOR OF 

* SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY AND THE SOCIAL," " EVENINGS 

WITH THE SACRED POETS," " PASTIME PAPERS," 

** STORY OF SOME FAMOUS BOOKS," ETC. 



+1 



** To write treatises reqtiireth tiitie in the writer and 
leisure in the reader ^ which is the cause that hath vtade 
me choose to write certaiti brief notes, set down rather 
signijicafitly than curiously" — Lord Bacon. 




NEW YORK 
THOMAS WniTTAKER 

2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 

i888 



. 2.77? 



Copyright, 1888, 
By THOMAS WHITTAKER. 



RAND AVERY COMPANY, 

ELECTROTYPERS AND PRINTERS, 

BOSTON. 



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(T/z<? above hook-plate puzzle 7va5 found in a translatio7i 
of Guevara's ''Epistles" IS77. — Bookmart.) 



CONTENTS. 



Old Book Notes i 

Ballad and Song Literature ^3 

Human Sympathy 58 

The Seasons and their Change .... 69 

Physiognomy 84 

The Mystery of Music 95 

The Survival of Books 108 

Life's Little Day 121 

Our Social Salutations 132 

The Symbolism of Flowers 147 

Head, Heart, and Hand 159 

Smiles and Tears 173 

Day and Night. , 185 



Stray Leaves of Literature. 




OLD BOOK NOTES. 

' The old, so wisdom saith, Is better than the new, — 
Friends, like old wine, old books, old days, 
With age do ripen into mellower hue ; 
And Time, for what he takes, full oft repays 
True hearts a hundred-fold." 

CONTEMPORARY critic' has justly 
remarked, that, '' if there is a fault 
in our present literary tastes, it is 
that they are too current. We are addicted 
to the books of the hour. We keep railway 
time in our reading ; if we shut a little steam 
off occasionally, and allow ourselves to pause 
at a great author, we hurry on so much the 
faster, to make up for lost minutes." In the 
present day, the literature of fiction, and 
that not of the highest order, seems to mon- 
opolize three-fourths of the popular reading, 
and, as a matter of course, at the expense of 
works of accredited skill in history, biography, 
ethics, science, and philosophy. The wealth 

1 W. C. Hazlitt. 



2 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

of learning bequeathed to us by the great 
leaders of thought in past ages is thus to a 
great extent ignored, and no less the delightful 
treasures of early poesy. What charming 
glimpses has not the minstrel-monk of old 
presented to us of English life, — 'civic and 
rural, — in his far-off day ! And we share with 
him in his delight, as we inspect his glow- 
ing pictures of the stately dances, of gallant 
knights and gentle dames, or the gorgeous 
pageants and banquets of feudal magnificence 
and splendor. 

It is among the quaint and curious tomes 
of long-forgotten lore, that the poet and the 
philosopher delight to make excursions in 
quest of the gems of thought and the pearls 
of song. 

Said Carlyle, " Of all the things which 
man can do or make here below, by far the 
most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are 
the things we call books." And Gibbon 
was scarcely less enthusiastic in their praise, 
when he confessed that his love for them 
constituted the pleasure and glory of his life. 
Hood spoke from experience, when he de- 
clared that many a trouble had been soothed 



Old Book Notes. 3 

through the agency of a book, and many a 
dragon-hke care charmed to sleep by the 
sweet song of the poet ; " for all which," he 
adds, " I incessantly cry, not aloud, but in 
my heart, ' thanks and honor to the glorious 
masters of the pen.' " While they thus hold 
us spell-bound, as by a magician's wand, and 
also charm away our sorrows and all unwel- 
come thoughts, they ofttimes instill lessons of 
wit and wisdom, — 

" With many a moral scattered here and there, 
Not very new, nor yet the worse for wear." 

Said Ruskin, ^' Bread of flour is good ; but 
there is bread sweet as honey, if we would 
eat, in a good book ; nor is it serviceable 
until it has been read and re-read, and loved 
and loved again." 

" Happy, indeed, with the best of happi- 
ness, is the man or woman who loves books 
truly. It is a passion, this love of books, 
whose calm joys are permitted alike to 
young and old, wise and simple. It is the 
only love that knows no decadence, whose 
arrows have no poisoned barb, whose enjoy- 
ments are wholly profitable and without 



4 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

satiety. Let it not be said that the love, 
the worship, of books is an unworthy pursuit ; 
for books are the noblest things in this world 
of ours." ' 

Books possess a talismanic power, and 
never are they affected by climate or cir- 
cumstances. 

" Books bring me friends, where'er on earth I be, — 
Solace of solitude, bonds of society. 
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow, please my mind, 
Love, joy, grief, laughter, hi my books I find." 

We shall be more ready to estimate at its 
true value the rich legacy bequeathed to us 
in books, when we remember under what 
privations and difficulties many of the re- 
nowned creations of genius have been pro- 
duced. " Sometimes under restraint and in 
prison, as when Cervantes illuminated his 
cell with the exploits of chivalry ; as when 
Raleigh sends forth his mind through the 
barred window, to gather materials for his 
' History of the World ; ' or as when Bunyan, 
whose fancy could not be seized by bailiff, 
mounts from the spiked floor to the height 

> S. Britton. 



Old Book Notes. 5 

of Allegory at a bound, and peoples his deso- 
late jail with imaginary forms and scenery, 
which have become immortal. Sometimes 
in bHndness, as when Homer, with darkened 
eyes, yet saw the conflicts of the heroes and 
gods of old ; and as when Milton, with 
scarcely pardonable audacity, walked the 
garden of paradise, and ventured even into 
the councils of heaven." ^ 

Even to gaze upon a choice collection of 
genuine books is a privileged pleasure, some- 
what akin to the delight we feel in looking 
over some rich parterre of many-hued flowers, 
and inhaling their fragrant incense. Of course 
it is a far richer entertainment to partake of 
'^the dainties that are bred in a book : " that 
is a feast of the gods, their ambrosia and 
nectar. What wonder that the great men 
of old should have been such lovers of 
books ; for Plato and Aristotle, Plutarch, 
Pliny and Horace, Virgil and Marcus Aure- 
lius, were of the order. And what innumer- 
able tributes, in prose and verse, have there 
not been lovingly inscribed to the honor of 
books ! 

* Marsh. 



6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

"The lover of reading," wrote Leigh Hunt, 
" will derive agreeable terror from ^ Sir Ber- 
tram ' and the * Haunted Chamber,' will 
assent with delighted reason to every sen- 
tence in Mrs. Barbauld's ' Essay,' will feel 
himself wandering into solitudes with Gray, 
shake honest hands with Sir Roger de Cov- 
erley, be ready to embrace Parson Adams, 
will travel with Marco Polo andMungo Park, 
stay at home with Thomson, retire with 
Cowley, be industrious with Hutton, sym- 
pathizing with Gay, melancholy and forlorn 
and self-restored with the shipwrecked mari- 
ner of De Foe ; " such is the mesmeric power 
of true books. 

The love of reading, which Gibbon de- 
clared he would not exchange for all the 
treasures of India, was, in fact, with Macaulay 
" a main element of happiness in one of the 
happiest lives that it has ever fallen to the 
lot of the biographer to record." There are, 
however, many books to which may justly be 
applied, in a sarcastic sense, the ambiguous 
remark once said to have been made to an 
unfortunate author, "I will lose no time in 
reading your book." 



Old Book Notes. 7 

Lovers of richly illuminated parchments, 
in the olden time, are followed by devotees 
equally enthusiastic over the modern printed 
volumes ; they are, however, too numerous 
even to name. Such were Montaigne, Burton, 
Coleridge, Southey, Hazlitt, and Lamb, who, 
on one occasion, was seen to kiss a folio of 
Chapman's " Homer," which he had just 
brought home ; and poor Southey, who, 
when he had outlived his mental vigor, used 
to sit in his study and fondly handle his 
favorite books. But it must be remembered 
that in literature, as in art, the productions of 
human genius are not all pure gold : spurious 
coin will be found occasionally to mingle 
with that of the genuine mint* and as in 
the kingdom of nature, so with books, the 
rule of the survival of the fittest obtains. 
Indeed, it has passed into a proverb, that — 

"There's nothing hath enduring youth, 
Except old friends, old books, and truth " 

Book-lovers, it is needless to state, will 
instinctively preserve, with jealous care, their 
literary treasures, whether they be clad in 
gay or homely guise ; since it is less for their 



8 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

exterior appearance than their intellectual 
worthy that they prize them. 

'* But whether it be worth or looks. 

We gently love or strongly ; 
Such virtue doth reside in books 

We scarce can love them wrongly; 
To sages an eternal school, 

A hobby (harmless) to the fool." 

The true book-lover is seen by the gentle, 
almost reverential, manner in which he han- 
dles his books ; it is an instinctive feeling that 
governs the act. Many — the many, may 
it not be said — treat a book as a mere com- 
monplace thing, forgetting that it contains 
the volatile essence of human thought, and 
is the product of genius. " There are men 
whose handhng of your books makes you 
tremble. It is told even of the great Pro- 
fessor W^ilson, that he would stalk into Black- 
wood's shop, and, disdainful of implements, 
would rip open the leaves of uncut books 
with his great fingers. Somehow this horrible 
tale is never quite absent from the mind 
when ^ Christopher North ' occupies it, and 
something of the aroma of the inimitable 
' Noctes ' vanishes. Some yahoos turn down 



Old Book Notes. 9 

comers ^ to keep a place ; ' others call them- 
selves human, yet cut books with hair-pins 
and pen-holders, or only cut within half an 
inch of the back, and leave the rest to 
tear." ^ 

Alonzo of Aragon said, " Age is a recom- 
mendation in four things, — old wood to burn, 
old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and 
old books to read." The oldest books of 
the world are interesting on account of their 
very age. " And the works which have in- 
fluenced the opinions, or charmed the leisure 
hours, of millions of men in distant times, 
and far away regions, are well worth reading 
on that very account, even if they seem 
scarcely to deserve their reputation." 

If we accept Dr. Holmes's estimate, the 
old books, so called, are really the produc- 
tions of the world's youth, and the new ones 
the fruit of its age. Samuel Rogers, the 
poet-banker, once told a friend, that, when- 
ever he received a new production of the 
press, he instinctively turned to some old 
book-favorite in preference. In our day, so 
overwhelming are the issues of the press, 

1 S. Britton. 



lo stray Leaves of Literature. 

that there are but few, comparatively, who 
have the time to consult the old writers. 

** Yet, were new books but small and few, 
We'd have a chance to read the new, 
And not forget the old." 

Readers of new books only — like those 
who indulge too freely in new bread — may 
suffer from dyspepsia, mentally and physi- 
cally. When it is remembered how few of 
the multitude of books that are perpetually 
emanating from the press, the world over, 
live even a decade of years, it is not surpris- 
ing that students and lovers of learning should 
prize all the more those works that have 
attained an enduring reputation. As an illus- 
trative instance, the " Essays " of Lord Bacon 
might be cited : these admirable papers, 
although dating back to the year 1597, are 
still regarded with undiminished favor. Mor- 
ley, referring to the literature of aphorism, 
affirms that it contains " one English name of 
magnificent and immortal lustre, — the name 
of Francis Bacon. His ^ Essays ' are the 
unique masterpiece in our Hterature of this 
oracular wisdom of Hfe, applied to the scat- 



Old Book Notes. ii 

tered occasions of our existence. These 
^ Essays ' are known to all the world." They 
were originally only ten in number ; but in a 
subsequent edition, printed in 1612, others 
were added, and subsequently the author 
spent much time in retouching and improv- 
ing them. Of his opus magnum^ the " Novum 
Organum," which first appeared in 1620, we 
have evidence of the pains he took with that 
work to render it worthy of his reputation. 
He copied and corrected the entire manu- 
script twelve times before he gave the great 
work to the world. Perchance it will be 
urged that the old writers were verbose and 
wearisomely prolix, and that the moderns 
have the advantage of condensation : this is 
readily admitted, since brevity in writing is as 
important as is charity among the virtues. 

It has been said, that, with the exception of 
Johnson's and Coleridge's volumes, we have 
nothing of equal value with the slim volume 
of Selden's " Table-Talk." Milton even styled 
Selden " the chief of the learned men reputed 
in this land ; " and Whitelock states that " his 
mind was as great as his learning." He was 
intimate with Ben Jonson, who addressed a 



12 Stray Leaves of Literature, 

poetic epistle to him, in which he styles him 
''monarch in letters." His entire writings 
formed three great folio volumes. Napoleon 
said things which told in history, like his 
battles ; and Luther's "Table-Talk " glows with 
the fire which burnt the Papal Bull ; and yet 
this now famous book, containing '^ stray 
fragments of talk separated from the context 
of casual and unrestrained conversation, and 
collected probably^ without the speaker's 
knowledge, one, two, three at a time, over a 
period of twenty years," was not published 
until thirty-five years after the death of its 
author. 

Sir Thomas More's "Utopia," originally 
written in Latin, but translated by Burnet, 
soon became familiar to English readers. It 
is a philosophical romance of the same class 
as Lord Bacon's "New Atlantis." Its pur- 
pose was to portray an ideal commonwealth, 
where the usages of life and its laws should 
be in accord with philosophical perfection. 
The work is now seldom read. Another work 
now almost passed into obhvion is Roger 
Ascham's "Schoolmaster," — a work which, 
however, is still regarded as valuable, not 



Old Book Notes, 13 

only because it was the first important work 
on education in our literature, but also 
because of the wise rules and principles it 
advocates. Ascham wrote this work when he 
was tutor to Queen Elizabeth, but it was not 
published until after his death. The book 
grew out of a conversation at Cecil's dinner- 
party at Windsor, on the subject of discipline 
at Eton College. The " Schoolmaster " will 
long be remembered for the quaint and inter- 
esting passage, often since quoted, from its 
connection with the gifted but hapless Lady 
Jane Grey. 

In the Elizabethan epoch, the literature of 
England culminated with such an outburst of 
literary genius as no age or country had ever 
before witnessed. "The literary fecundity 
of that period of English history which 
embraces the latter half of the reign of Eliza- 
beth, and the whole of that of James I., is a 
perpetual astonishment to us all.'' Then 
came the Cromwellian era, with its Puritans 
and Cavaliers ; Milton and his noble col- 
leagues, — those pioneers who fought like 
heroes for liberty, religious and political. 

There is a singular story related of a work 



14 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

of a different order from the fore-mentioned, 
— Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy." The 
book is not generally consulted or thought of 
in these days ; but when it made its advent, 
in 162 1, it had a remarkable popularity. The 
publisher, it is stated, by his share of its results, 
bought an estate. Among its admirers were 
Milton, Sterne, Swift, Johnson, and Byron, who 
called it " the most exciting and instructive 
medley of quotations and classical anecdotes 
he ever perused." ^Dr. Johnson is popularly 
reported to have said that Burton's '' Anatomy 
of Melancholy " was the only book that ever 
got him out of bed before the proper time. 
"The Athenaeum " said, " It has an absolutely 
unique charm ; there is no other book with 
which it can be compared. One may linger 
over its pages for many days and nights to- 
gether, and then, with re-doubled ardor, read 
it through again." It has proved the pro- 
lific resort of plagiarists and of any amount 
of hterary larceny. Beckford, the author of 
" Vathek," said that half of the modern 
books of his day had been decanted from it. 
Burton in his work is said to refer to nearly 
two hundred authors whom nobody nowa- 



Old Book Notes. 15 

days ever heard of. He wrote this strange 
admixture of wit, fancy, and good sense, 
during his twenty years of literary leisure at 
the University of Oxford, with the intent, as 
he states, of curing his hypochondria, although 
he did not accomplish his purpose. '''■ Sterne 
has interwoven many parts of it into his own 
popular performance ; Milton did not disdain 
to build two of his finest poems on it ; and a 
host of inferior writers have embelHshed their 
works with beauties not their own, culled from 
a performance which they had not the justice 
even to mention." 

'^ Burton's book, by the way, had its proto- 
type in that scarce work, Timothy Bright's 
'A Treatise of Melancholic. Containing the 
causes thereof and reasons of the strange 
effects it worketh in our minds and bodies ; 
with the phisicke cure, and spirituall consola- 
tion for such as have thereto abjoyned an 
afflicted conscience. The difference betwixt 
it and melanchoHe, with diverse physopkicall 
discourses touching actions and affections of 
soule, spirit, and body ; the particulars where- 
of are to be scene before the book.' This was 
a small 8vo printed by Thomas Vantrollier in 



i6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

1586. Dr. Bright was also the author of 
'Charactery; an Arte of Shorte, Swift, and 
Secrete Writing by Character,' a Httle 24mo 
printed at London in 1588. In this book 
the doctor claims to be the inventor of 
short-hand." 

As Lord Bacon may be said to have been 
the great preceptor of inductive philosophy, 
so Sir Isaac Newton may be styled the ex- 
pounder of the laws of the universe. In the 
year 1662 was organized the Royal Society 
of Great Britain; and in 16 71 Newton laid 
before that society his "Theory of Light," 
followed, in 1687, by his renowned \vork 
/* Principia." No single work has, perhaps, 
ever been published which has exerted a 
more signal influence upon science and the 
progress of civilization ; and yet for this mar- 
vellous production, it is said, its author never 
received any thing but his rich revenue of 
fame.' 



' " The manuscript of the Principia, without the preface or 
diagrams, bound in one volume, is the most precious treasure in 
the possession of the Royal Society; and it is exhibited in a glass 
case, rarely opened, in the society's library. It has been some- 
times stated to be entirely in Newton's handwriting; but Edles- 
ton, in his Correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and Professor 



Old Book Notes. 17 

Take another instance : Thomas Fuller, — 
the contemporary of Milton, — who for his 
transcendent merits, both in head and heart, 
has awakened the admiration of men ^' whose 
names will not perish before his own." Col- 
eridge has said, " Next to Shakspeare, I am 
not certain w^hether Thomas Fuller, beyond 
all other writers, does not excite in me the 
sense and emotion of the marvellous. He 
was incomparably the most sensible, the least 
prejudiced great man of an age that boasted 
a galaxy of great men." Voluminous as are 
his writings, it is rarely that a page meets the 
eye in which some epigrammatic sentence 
does not supply a motto or a maxim. His 
wonderful memory seems almost to challenge 
behef, w^ere not the proofs of its power so well 
authenticated. A writer in " The Retrospec- 
tive Review" has almost equalled Coleridge in 
his enthusiastic estimate of our author. He 
says, ^' If there ever was an amusing writer 

Cotes, shows that it is not Newton's autograph, the author's own 
hand being easily recognized in minor additions and alterations. 
And the same is the case with the manuscript De Motu Corpo- 
rum, constituting, to a certain extent, the first draught of the 
Principia, now in the Cambridge University library. Probably 
both are in the handwriting of Humphrey Newton, who was Sir 



1 8 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

in this world, the facetious Thomas Fuller 
was that one." He was not only remarkable 
for his mental endowments^ but also for his 
diligent exercise of them. He was a great 
collector of traditional stories related of emi- 
nent characters, which he has transmitted to 
us. We get a glimpse of his curious method 
of composition, eccentric like himself, from 
his biography. 

Fuller's writings were, also, great favorites 
with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and a 
host of other literary men, for the practical 
wisdom of his thoughts, and the beauty and 
variety of the truths which he presents. 
Though he was by no means a recluse stu- 
dent, and though he lived in one of the most 

Isiac's amanuensis from 1683 to 1689^ and who certainly copied 
the work before it went to press. 

"At last, in 1709, on the urgent solicitation of Bentley, master 
of Trinity College, Newton intrusted to Roger Cotes, the first 
Plumian Professor at Cambridge, the superintendence of a sec- 
ond edition of the Principia; and Newton supplied enlargements 
and corrections sufficient to make the edition of high original 
Talue. It was completed on June 25, 1713; and on the 27th of 
July, Newton waited on Queen Anne to present a copy to her. 
The cost of the printing was borne by Bentley, who also received 
the profits. Conduitt asked Newton how he came to let Bentley 
print his Principia, which he did not understand. ' Why,' said 
KewtOD, * he was covetous, and I let him do it to get money.* 



Old Booh Notes, 19 

eventful periods of English history, yet the 
recorded facts of his own career are neither 
numerous nor important ; and these are, for 
the most part, to be gathered from his own 
works. 

Another notable name as connected with 
those turbulent times might here be men- 
tioned, that of Sir Thomas Browne, the author 
of " Religio Medici," which Lord Lytton has 
said "is one of the most beautiful prose- 
poems in the language." This work, as its 
title imports, concerns the religious opinions 
of a physician ; was, it is supposed, suggested 
by "the sundry contemplations" of his travels 
on the Continent, through France, Italy, and 
other States. Sir Thomas is a very interest- 

A third edition of the Principia was brought out in 1726 by Dr. 
Henry Pemberton, from materials furnished by Newton. Con- 
duitt states that Sir Isaac gave Pemberton two hundred guineas 
to defray expenses; and it appears that Pemberton received the 
profits, and besides had three thousand guinea subscriptions for 
his View of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy, published in 1728. 
Thus we see that for this marvellous work the author never re- 
ceived one penny, but gave his time and thought freely to the 
world. Well may posterity lavish on Newton's memory all pos- 
sible honor; for his contemporaries could give him nothing but a 
business post at the mint, which took much of his time away from 
his researches, together with the presidency of the Royal Society 
from 1703 to 1727." — Loftdon Times, 



20 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

ing companion for a thoughtful .reader; his 
candor and independence of thought render 
his writings very attractive. Notwithstanding 
his antique and quaint style, this work has 
maintained its hold upon the attention of 
scholars, while much of tlie literature of his 
day has wholly passed into oblivion. The 
*' Religio Medici " is destined to continue a 
favorite with scholars, as well for its quaint- 
ness and wisdom, as for its being a reflex of 
the idiosyncrasies of its author. 

As to the true authorship of "Gil Bias," 
much learned discussion has been maintained, 
on the one side, by Llorente, who insists 
that this work was the production of the 
Spanish historian Don Antonio de Solis, — 
chiefly because no one but this gentleman, it 
is assumed, could have planned a similar 
fiction at the time "Gil Bias" is supposed to 
have been written, which he places in 1588. 
On the other side of the controversy, Ville- 
main refutes the accusation that Le Sage was 
indebted for "Gil Bias" to a Spanish original. 
He says, " Our ' Gil Bias ' is not stolen, what- 
ever may have been said to the contrary by 
Llorente. But doubtless he cleverly culled 



Old Book Notes. 21 

that rational pleasantry, that philosophy, 
grave yet sweet, sarcastic yet agreeable, 
which sparkles in Cervantes and in Quevedo ; 
and to this free and general imitation Le 
Sage adds the savor of the best of antiquity.'* 
Ticknor's remarks are the following : '*' Le 
Sage began by translating the ' Don Quixote ' 
of Avellaneda; but the 'Gil Bias' — the 
greatest of all his works in prose fiction — is 
the result of his confirmed strength." Although 
the graphic power of this writer is admitted to 
be great, many of the portraitures he presents 
are revolting to correct taste and morals. 
Le Sage himself has left us a sad picture of 
his own career ; his life having been one 
of obscurity and poverty, and early falling into 
second childhood, and then dying an object 
of pity. 

Cervantes tells us that he wrote " Don 
Quixote " to expose false and absurd stories 
contained in the books of chivahy. The 
fanaticism caused by those romances was so 
great in Spain, during the sixteenth century, 
that the burning of all exciting copies was 
desired by the Cortes. No books of chivalry 
were written after the appearance of ''Don 



22 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Quixote, — a remarkable illustration of the 
influence of genuis in a single book to cor- 
rect an evil. The idea of the work, as we 
learn from the preface to the "first part," 
was suggested to the author while he was a 
prisoner at Seville, in 1604. After an interval 
of eight years, he announced the "second 
part ; " for he at first thought so httle of the 
performance himself, that he laid it aside, and 
devoted his pen to minor tales and dramas, 
rather than to its completion. Yet afterward 
he became proud of the popularity of his pro- 
duction. He had got as far as chapter fifty- 
nine, when there was put into his hand a small 
volume entitled "Second Volume of the 
Ingenious Gentleman, Don Quixote of La 
Mancha, by Alonso F. de Avellaneda." In 
the preface to this spurious continuation, the 
writer taunts Cervantes with being old, a 
prisoner, poor, and friendless ; but for this 
interference, it is doubtful whether we should 
have ever had the genuine work completed by 
the author. 

The original source of the " Arabian Nights' 
Entertainments " is disputed. That some of 
the most fanciful and enchanting tales in the 



Old Book Notes. 23 

collection are derived from an Indian source, 
appears undeniable ; although notions and 
images suited to the sphere of the ideas of a 
Mohammedan and an inhabitant of western 
Asia have been substituted for every allusion 
to polytheism and Hindoo institutions. In 
England the "Arabian Nights" made their 
way at once, because, in addition to stories 
of enchantment which interest the young, 
they exhibit a true picture of Oriental life and 
manners. Galland, a French OrientaUst, made 
translations in 1704. Oriental scholars did 
not hesitate at first to declare against their 
authenticity; but a more thorough knowl- 
edge of Arabic history and custom has 
proved their genuineness as pictures of 
Moslem hfe. The origin of the work — 
where and by whom written — is involved in 
mystery. Of the stories translated by Gal- 
land, Dr. Russell procured copies of a con- 
siderable portion of the originals, during his 
residence at Aleppo ; and most of the tales 
are known to exist among the Arabic manu- 
scripts in the Vatican, the Bibliotheque 
Nationale, and the British Museum, as well 
as the Bodleian Library. Dr. Russell says, 



24 stray Leaves of Literature. 

"The recitation of Eastern fables and tales 
partakes somewhat of a dramatic perform- 
ance. The speaker throws action into his 
recitals, and he is a welcome visitor at the 
divans and caravans of the Orient." The 
characters portrayed, and the customs and 
habits described, of course, are pictured with 
the glowing colors of the East. Youth and 
age have been said to join hands over these 
Oriental tales ; " David Copperfield " in his 
nursery, and Macaulay in his study, alike 
acknowledge the enchantment of the " Arab- 
ian Nights." 

Butler's " Hudibras," now almost a forgotten 
book, was, in the days of the " Merrie Mon- 
arch," not only the pet poem of the people, 
but the special favorite of Charles II. In 
spite of its inelegancies of style and doggerel 
diction, it was once considered to contain 
more true wit than could be found in all the 
contemporary poets of that day. But while 
this rude satire was greeted with the laughter 
and applause of the multitude, and the mon- 
arch himself, there was the poor, blind "poet 
of Paradise," living in obscurity and neglect, 
inditing the stately measures of his matchless 
epic ! 



Old Book Notes. 25 

The original idea of " Hudibras " was de- 
rived from " Don Quixote." Although Butler 
received unbounded praise for his perform- 
ance, alike from the king and the people, 
yet that was about all ; for Charles did noth- 
ing for him, and he ended his days in 
extreme poverty, althoagh the satire was 
written in the interest of the royalist party. 

The world-renowned " Curiosities of Litera- 
ture," of D'IsraeH, owes its existence to the 
following interesting incident. When in his 
twenty-fifth year, the author became impressed 
with the idea that an interesting collection 
might be formed, not only consisting of recol- 
lections of contemporary persons of distinc- 
tion in the realm of science and literature, 
but also from the resources of his own and 
other libraries. The taste for literary history 
was then of recent date in England ; Dr. 
Johnson and his contemporaries having been, 
to a great extent, instrumental in introducing 
that branch of literature from the French. 

The book was originally published anony- 
mously, and at the expense of the author, 
who it is said thoughtlessly gave his copy- 
right to his pubHsher. This he practically 



26 stray Leaves of Literature. 

reclaimed, however, in the enlarged edition, 
and lived not only to prove its remarkable 
success, but to supplement it by several other 
works of a cognate character. 

Much has recently been suggested as to 
the choice of books, — books that are con- 
sidered by critics as most helpful to the 
reader ; and the need of such hints is at once 
apparent, when the productions of the press 
are so prolific and miscellaneous in charac- 
ter. It has been affirmed that more good 
books are now read than ever before ; yet 
may it not, with equal truth, be said of books 
of an opposite character ? If the former class 
are productive of intellectual and moral bene- 
fit, who may compute the destructive influ- 
ence of vicious books ? 

Readers of Fiction — much of which is 
unwholesome if not pernicious to morals, and 
obnoxious to cultivated and correct taste — 
have especial need to discriminate between the 
true and the false in this branch of literature. 

Admitting the unprecedented achievements 
that render the present age so illustrious, in 
its wonderful discoveries in science and art, 
as well as their application to the purposes 



Old Book Notes. 27 

of practical life, we must not fail to remem- 
ber our signal obligations to those intellectual 
triumphs which rendered so resplendent the 
great literary epochs that have preceded us. 

Doubtless the learning in our day is far 
more general and diffused, — a most essential 
factor in national progress, — but may it not 
be questioned whether our educational system 
has not suffered somewhat thereby, in its 
being less exact and thorough ? No nation, 
however, may boast more wide-spread and 
liberal endowments than are now to be found 
in the United States ; and no people are so 
generously provided with the facilities of 
intellectual, ethical, and religious culture. 

The civilized world may be generally classi- 
fied in three varieties : those who know 
how to value true books, '^ books that are 
books ; " those who only care for the most 
trivial and ephemeral books ; and that class 
who are content to disregard books altogether. 
Some, indeed, buy books as furniture : — 

"Nor altogether fool is he, who orders, free from 
doubt. 
Those books which no good library should ever 

be without; 
And blandly locks the well-glazed door 
On tomes that issue never more." 



28 stray Leaves of Literature. 

St. Paul — although doubtless referring to 
works theological — says, " Give attendance to 
reading;" and, in another place, enjoins the 
bringing of '' the books, especially the parch- 
ments." Ruskin has the following pertinent 
remarks : — 

'^ How much do you think we spend 
altogether on our libraries, public or private, 
as compared with what we spend on our 
horses? If a man spends lavishly on his 
library, you call him mad — a bibliomaniac. 
But you never call one a horse-maniac, though 
men ruin themselves every day by their 
horses ; and you do not hear of people ruin- 
ing themselves by their books. Or, to go 
lower still, how much do you think the con- 
tents of the book-shelves of the United King- 
dom, public and private, would fetch, as 
compared with the contents of its wine- 
cellars? What position would its expenditure 
on literature take as compared with its expen- 
diture on luxurious eating? We talk of food 
for the mind, as of food for the body. Now, 
a good book contains such food inexhausti- 
ble : it is provision for hfe, and for the best 
part of us ; yet how long most people would 



Old Book Notes. 29 

look at the best book before they would give 
the price of a large turbot for it ! Though 
there have been men who have pinched their 
stomachs, and bared their backs, to buy a 
book, whose libraries were cheaper to them, 
I think, in the end, than most men's dinners 
are." 

Looking at books, as though their authors 
were in present companionship, Sterne thus 
pleasantly writes in one of his letters : — 

" I often derive a peculiar satisfaction in 
conversing with the ancient and modern 
dead, who yet live and speak excellently in 
their works. My neighbors think me often 
alone ; and yet at such times I am in com- 
pany with more than five hundred mutes, — 
each of whom, at my pleasure, communi- 
cates his ideas to me by dumb signs, quite 
as intelligibly as any person living can do by 
uttering of words." 

What can be better said, in this connec- 
tion, than to give the wise words of Jeremy 
Golher? 

^' A man may as well expect to grow 
stronger by always eating, as wiser by always 
reading. Too much overcharges nature, and 



30 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

turns more into disease than nourishment 
It is thought and digestion which make 
books serviceable, and give health and 
vigor to the mind. Books well chosen 
neither dull the appetite nor strain the mem- 
ory, but refresh the inclinations, strengthen 
the powers, and improve under experiments. 
By reading, a man does as it were antedate 
his Hfe, and makes himself contemporary with 
past ages.'* 

Many, if not most, of the classic writers 
and old chroniclers have recorded their high 
estimates of books : we cite only that of the 
worthy monk, Richard de Bury, who flour- 
ished in the thirteenth century. His quaint 
words, translated from the Latin, are the 
following : " These are the masters who in- 
struct us without rods and ferules, without 
hard words and anger. If you approach 
them, they are not asleep ; if you interrogate 
them, they conceal nothing ; if you are igno- 
rant, they cannot laugh at you." Emerson 
gives us these three rules in regard to the 
use of books : " Never to read any book 
that is not a year old, never to read any 
but famed books, and never to read any 



Old Book Notes. 31 

but what you like;" or, in Shakspeare's 
phrase, — 

" No profit grows where is no pleasure ta^en ; 
In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 

Montaigne says, "Books are a languid 
pleasure ; but some are vital and sper- 
matic, not leaving the reader what he was : 
he shuts the book a richer man." Cicero 
calls "a library the soul of a house." "Be- 
side a library," says a later authority,^ " how 
poor are all the other great deeds of men ! 
. . .There the thoughts and deeds of the 
most efficient men, during three thousand 
years, are accumulated ; and every one who 
will learn a few conventional signs — twenty- 
four (magic) letters — can pass at pleasure 
from Plato to Napoleon ; from the Argonauts 
to the Afghans ; from the woven mathematics 
of La Place, to the mythology of Egypt and 
the lyrics of Burns." 

Seneca styles books "his friends," and 
hints that we should be careful in their 
selection. Few now fail to make their ac- 
quaintance, but comparatively few books are 

^ Professor Davis. 



32 stray Leaves of Literature. 

held in memory as friends. Book-love "is 
said to be the good angel that keeps watch 
and ward by the poor man's hearth and 
hallows it ; saving him from the temptations 
that lurk beyond its charmed circle. Book- 
love is a magician, and carries us with one 
touch of its fairy wand whithersoever it will." 
It is also an artist ; not only a portrait and 
landscape painter in letters, but it is no less 
a physician to heal maladies, or lay asleep a 
grief or pain. There is also a potency in 
some books that recall calm and tranquil 
scenes of by-gone happiness. Southey's love 
for books outlived even his abihty to enjoy 
their perusal, and Petrarch died with his 
head resting on a book. Book-love, like all 
other loves, is capable of exercising a deep 
and lasting influence over the minds of its 
votaries, either for good or evil : it may con- 
trol our future thoughts and lives. 




BALLAD 
AND SONG LITERATURE. 

" Syllables govern the world." — Selden. 

ilOETRY is older than prose. Of 
this we have what may be called 
palaeontological proof in the struc- 
ture of all languages. Our every-day speech 
is fossil poetry ; words which are now dead 
were once alive. The farther we recede, and 
the lower we descend, the more these wonder- 
ful petrifactions of old forms of poetic thought 
and feeling abound." ^ 

During many ages and through many revo- 
lutions, minstrelsy retained its influence over 
both the Teutonic and the Celtic races. The 
exploits of Athelstane were commemorated by 
the Anglo-Saxons, and those of Canute by the 
Danes, in rude poems, of which a few frag- 
ments have come down to us. The chants of 
the Welsh harpers preserved through ages 

* Abraham Coles. 

33 



34 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

of darkness a faint and doubtful memory of 
Arthur. In the highlands of Scotland may still 
be gleaned some relics of the old songs about 
Cuchullin and Fingal. The ballad was, indeed, 
the means of conveying information in the 
olden time. Even at an epoch so obscure as 
that of Charlemagne they were not without 
their " ancient songs," in which the acts and 
exploits of heroes and kings were rehearsed. 
It was from the old historic ballads that the 
old chroniclers derived their material. 

Ballads may be traced in British history to 
Anglo-Saxon times. Adhelme (who died in 
A.D. 709) is mentioned as the first who 
introduced them ; and it will be remembered 
that King Alfred himself sung ballads, while 
Canute is credited with having composed at 
least one. If we seek their origin, how- 
ever, it may be traceable in the wild lays of 
the Runic Scalds, in the Nibelungenlied of 
the Germans, in the Eddas and Sagas, and 
in the songs of the Druids. These mytho- 
logical, ethical, and legendary songs at length 
led to the ballads of the Celts and Teutons, 
and ultimately they were developed into the 
many-hued balladry that we now possess. 



Ballad and Song Literature. 35 

With the British ballad may be named the 
Oriental, and the chivalric minstrelsy of 
Spain, France, and Italy. 

Literature owes much to the early song- 
writers, ballad-mongers, and satirists ; for 
they have, it may be unwittingly, given us 
glimpses of life and manners of past times, 
which otherwise we might not have known. 
Their uses to history are no less manifest and 
important ; since to the ballad, rather than the 
chronicle, we look for the every-day life and 
customs of any people. And it is not to be 
forgotten that it was the earliest form of 
traditionary lore, commencing with the pre- 
historic ages. 

'' If a man were permitted to make all the 
ballads, he need not care who should make 
the laws of a nation," was the shrewd remark 
which is to be attributed to the renowned 
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. The full sig- 
nificance of the remark will be apparent when 
it is remembered that the author was one of 
those who admitted the necessity of a union 
with Scotland, though alive to the national 
regrets it entailed. 

They who deem the above now proverbial 



36 stray Leaves of Literature, 

statement extravagant, will not continue to 
think so, if they only recall the results of that 
silly ballad of " LillibuUero/' ' the author of 
which publicly boasted that he " had rhymed 
King James out of his three dominions." The 
fierce hostility that raged during the revolu- 
tion of 1688 was very productive of such 
pasquinades, which caused the existing Gov- 
ernment much annoyance ; nor could they be 
wholly suppressed by either the pillory or 
jail. These political squibs, however, were 
temporary, and distinct from the famous 
legendary ballad; and, again, the ballad 
proper is to be distinguished from another 
order, — the polished verses of the courtly 
poets. It is to the old legendary songs that 
Longfellow refers, where he says, " I have 
a passion for ballads : they are the gypsy 
children of song, born under the green hedge- 

^ Lillibullero and Bullen-a-lah are the refrain to a song, 
said to have been written by Lord Wharton, which had a more 
powerful effect than the phiUppics of either Demosthenes or 
Cicero, and contributed not a little to the great revolution of 
1688. Burnet says, "It made an impression on the [king's] army 
that cannot be imagined. . . . The whole army, and at last the 
people, both in city and country, were singing it perpetually; 
. . . never had so slight a thing so great an effect." The song 
is in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. 



Ballad and Song Literature. 37 

rows, in the leafy lanes and by-paths of liter- 
ature, in the genial summertime." 

The homely and unpolished rhymes of the 
mediaeval minstrels may be said to possess a 
subtle fascination in their very quaintness and 
simplicity, and they also let us into secrets 
and side views of their every-day life. 

Drayton wrote the stirring ballad of ^^ Agin- 
court " in the sixteenth century, and the 
'Nut-brown Maid" was written about the 
same time. The "Robin Hood" legend 
dates about the close of the twelfth century. 
The traditions concerning this English outlaw 
are chiefly derived from Stow's 'Chronicle," 
but this source is now considered apocry- 
phal. These "Robin Hood" ballads were 
doubtless the popular protests against the 
oppression of the privileged classes, uttered 
in song. As to that pet legend of the poets, 
"Arthur and his Knights of the Round 
Table," it is now supposed that it refers to 
a real character. The Welsh bards refer to a 
Prince Arthur who fought against the Saxons, 
and held his court at Winchester. A full 
account of his heroic exploits and wonderful 
adventures is recorded in the veritable 



38 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

^^ chronicle" of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
Even in his day, — that is, the twelfth century, 
— this romantic legend had become incor- 
porated with much of our poetical literature. 
Macaulay, who has written so appreciatingly 
of this kind of literature in his preface to his 
" Lays of Ancient Rome," states that eighty 
years ago England possessed only one tattered 
copy of " Childe Waters " and '^ Sir CauHne," 
and Spain only one copy of the noble poem 
of the " Cid." These, with numerous others, 
have been rescued, and preserved in the Percy 
collection. 

The old Spanish ballad was very prolific ; 
when first collected, in the sixteenth century, 
they are said to have numbered about one 
thousand, most of the writers of which were 
unknown. From the earliest period the 
"Cid" has been the occasion of more 
Spanish ballads, than any other of their 
heroes. The Moorish ballads, forming a 
distinct class, were for the most part martial 
and warlike in character ; others being tales 
of love and chivalry. 

In the early ballad, its interest did not con- 
sist either in its rhyme or the music : the one 



Ballad and Song Literature. 39 

was often an approach to the doggerel of the 
improvisator, and the other far more a wild 
declamatory intoning than singing. The inter- 
est lay in the story. But the bard is no 
longer heard amongst us ; nor is it customary 
now for any maid to seize her harp, hke 
Flora MacDonald, " and fling a ballad to the 
moon." Instead, we have Coleridge's 
" Genevieve " and '' The Ancient Mariner,'' 
as well as other modern gems from Scott, 
Wordsworth, Southey, Tennyson, Longfellow, 
and others ; not forgetting the humorous 
production of Dr. O. W. Holmes, entitled 
"The Boston Tea- Party." 

According to Hallam, the far-famed "Chevy 
Chase," which so moved Sir Philip Sidney, had 
no historic foundation, but was purely legend- 
ary. Sidney's words were, " I never heard the 
old song of Percie and Douglas ["Chevy 
Chase"], that I found not my heart moved 
more than with a trumpet." Ben Jonson 
was another warm admirer of it. 

It has been truly said, that instead of ballad 
writing, as some have supposed, being the 
easiest, it is the most difficult kind of poetic 
composition ; and consequently a true ballad 



40 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

may be the simplest, and at the same time 
sublimest, form of poetry. And yet there is 
a class of homely ditties, or nursery rhymes, 
such as ''Jack the Giant- Killer," " Cindei* 
ella," "Blue Beard" and others, which are 
said to have had their origin with the ancient 
Scandinavians, which hnger to our time. 

Among the innumerable ballads and songs 
now conserved, few touch the common heart 
more readily than "Auld Robin Gray" 
(written by Lady Ann Lindesay) , although it 
passed for a long time as a genuine ancient 
ballad. These . minstrels and their calling, 
during the EHzabethan reign and subse- 
quently, fell, however, into disrepute ; yet they 
are entitled to respect for what they accom- 
plished, for they were, in fact, long the only 
custodians of our popular literature. But 
the age of traditionary ballads has passed 
away, and a new order of legendary literature 
has taken its place ; the former bears the im- 
press of its age, and the latter of the individual 
poet. It has been said the one differs from 
the other as much as " the wild and dew-fed 
violet of the meadows differs from the culti- 
vated pansy of our gardens." Some of our 



Ballad and Song Literature. 41 

modern ballads, indeed, are simply old friends 
with new faces : Scott's "Young Lochinvar '* 
tells the same story as the old ballad of 
"Katharine of lanfarie," and "The Lass of 
Lochryan " suggested Burns's song of " Lord 
Gregory;" while Tennyson's "Lord of 
Burleigh" is simply a modern version of the 
fine old ballad of "Donald of the Isles," 
or " Lizzie Lindsay." Many similar instances 
might be cited. Without the Percy manu- 
script, no proper collection of the national 
ballads of England, it has been said, was 
possible, since only spurious copies of many 
of the finest ballads in the language were 
otherwise to be had. Mr. Furnivall in Eng- 
land, and in America Professor Child of 
Harvard University, have long been indus- 
triously engaged in researches, having in view 
a complete collection of British ballads. To 
these gentlemen the world is indebted for 
the publication of the valuable collection of 
Bishop Percy. "The manuscript was found 
lying dirty on the floor, under a bureau, in 
the parlor of his friend Humphrey Pitt of 
Shiffnal in Shropshire, being used by the ser- 
vants to light the fire." The handwriting is 



42 stray Leaves of Literature. 

assigned to about the year 1650. The story 
of the discovery, which is given in detail 
in Dr. Wheatley's fine edition of the Percy 
"Rehques," is extremely interesting ; and it 
is gratifying to note that it is to Professor 
Child's persistent efforts urging antiquarians in 
England to seek for these antique literary treas- 
ures, that we owe their discovery. Above a 
hundred years had elapsed since the first 
appearance of the " Reliques ;" but the 
manuscripts lay hid in Ecton Hall, and no 
one had been allowed to see them until now. 

In addition to the "Percy" collection, it 
should be mentioned, we have the choice 
"The Roxburghe Ballads," the manuscripts 
of which are in the British Museum. These 
are not only the very songs that amused 
the people of England three centuries 
ago, but they afford us glimpses of their 
habits of every-day life in the times of the 
"great Elizabeth," the stirring events of that 
romantic and heroic era still enshrined in 
song. 

For all, therefore, who share any interest 
in these quaint and picturesque relics of the 
olden times, an abundant and delightful feast 



Ballad and Song Literature. 43 

has thus been spread for them by the above- 
named skilful Hterary purveyors on both sides 
of the Atlantic. 

xAmong the multitudinous lyric songs that 
regale the ear with their rich melody, and 
stir the heart with their beautiful sentiment, 
there are few, if any, that surpass for its 
touching pathos the old familiar refrain of 
*^ Home, Sweet Home." It is not only a 
national song, but it has long since become 
cosmopolitan. 

In the spring of the year 1821, John 
Hov/ard Payne, while in London, was en- 
gaged in writing operas and melodramas 
under the auspices of John Kemble. In 
one of these operas, which he called " Clari, 
the Maid of Milan," he introduced songs 
and duets, and among them the immortal 
song of " Home, Sweet Home." It is said 
that it became very popular at once, over 
one hundred thousand copies of it having 
been sold within the year of its appearance. 
Henry Bishop has the credit of composing 
or adapting the melody to the words ; but 
Payne relates, that, when he was travelling in 
Italy, he heard a peasant-girl singing a plain- 



44 Stray Leaves of Literature, 

tive air which made an instant impression 
upon him. He dotted down the notes, and 
he sent them, with the song, to Bishop ; and 
it may be added, that rarely has there been 
a union of sound and sense more fehcitously 
formed. This renowned lyric of the Home 
has not only been the universal favorite of 
the home-circle the world over, but p7'ima- 
donnas have lavished upon it the resources 
of art, home-wanderers (like its author) 
have poured out their souls in its plaintive 
strains, mothers have chanted it over the 
cradle, until now it has become the Home- 
song of the nations. Years ago when the 
" Swedish nightingale " (Jenny Lind) visited 
the United States, and gave concerts at the 
Castle Garden Hall, on one occasion, being 
encored, she gave, unexpectedly, " Home, 
Sweet Home." It was a graceful tribute of 
honor to its author, whom she noticed as 
being present. 

An illustration of the utter absence of pathos 
is seen in this rollicking Welsh ballad : — 

" The mountain sheep are sweeter, but the valley 
sheep are fatter ; 
So that we deemed it meeter to carry off the latter. 



Ballad and Song Literature. 45 

We made an expedition ; we met a host and 

quelled it. 
We forced a strong position, and killed the men 

who held it. 

On Dyfed's richest valley, where herds of kine 

were browsing, 
We made a mighty sally, to furnish our carousing. 

Fierce warriors rushed to meet us : we met them, 

and o'erthrew them. 
They struggled hard to beat us ; but we conquered 

them, and slew them. 

As we marched off at leisure, the king he thought 

to catch us. 
His rage surpassed all measure, but his men they 

could not match us. 

He fled to his hall-pillars; and, ere our force we 

led off. 
Some sacked his house and cellars, whilst others 

cut his head off. 

We there, in strife bewildering, spilled blood 

enough to swim in ; 
We orphaned many children, and we widowed 

many women. 

We led away from battle, and much the land 

bemoaned them. 
Three thousand head of cattle, and the head of 

him who owned them. 



46 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Edynfrid, King of Dyfed, his head was borne 
before us ; 

His wine and meat supplied our feast, his over- 
throw our chorus." 

It has been well said that national songs — 

" Have greater power on earth, 
For each true heart and ear, 
Than all the storied columns 
Conquest's minions rear." 

Music has a rhetoric of its own, often more 
eloquent than verbal utterance ; but alHed 
to impassioned words, its combined power to 
control, to stir the feelings and emotions, is 
well nigh irresistible. Its martial strains fire 
the enthusiasm of the patriot to deeds of 
heroism in the cause of Hberty ; its plaintive 
and tender cadences vibrate with the thrill 
of affection, and the sympathetic bonds of 
domestic hfe ; while its solemn peals awaken 
the heart to ecstasy and devotional rapture. 

The characteristics of a people may, in- 
deed, to a certain extent, be enshrined in 
their national and patriotic songs and ballads. 
Much of the legendary lore and minstrelsy 
that have descended to us from sire to son, 
traceable to the ancient Celtic race, has been 



Ballad and Song Literature. 47 

scattered over many of the countries of 
Europe. 

The national anthem of Great Britain, 
"God save the Queen" (or King), which 
is played and sung in every part of the 
British Empire, aUke on solemn and festive 
occasions, has been the subject of contro- 
versy with respect to its origin. Its words 
are supposed to have been suggested by the 
" Domine Salvum " of the Roman-Catholic 
Church service. In England the authorship 
has been generally attributed to Dr. John Bull, 
who was organist in Queen Elizabeth's Chapel 
in 1596, professor of music in Gresham 
College, and chamber-musician of James I. 
About the period of the discovery of the 
Gunpowder Plot, he is said to have com- 
posed and played before the king an ode 
beginning with these words, " God save great 
James our King ! " Bull died at Lubeck, 
1622. In Antwerp Cathedral, it has been 
stated, there is a manuscript copy of it, 
attached to which is the statement that Dr. 
John Bull was the author of both the text 
and the melody; adding that it was com- 
posed on the occasion of the discovery of 



48 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

the Gunpowder Plot, to which the words, 
"Frustrate their knavish tricks,'^ especially 
allude. The anthem was first published in 
a musical periodical called '^Harmonia An- 
glica," in 1742. The air has preserved its 
original form, but its harmonies are said to 
have been modified again and again ; indeed, 
its history is quite an evolution of music. 

Another national anthem of Great Britain, 
" Rule Britannia," has been described by 
Southey as " the political hymn of England 
so long as she maintains her pohtical power." 
Its original appearance was in a masque 
entitled "Alfred ; " the words being by James 
Thomson (the poet of the "Seasons") and 
David Mallet, the music by Dr. Arne. 

Many of the best of American national 
airs were inspired by the events to which 
they refer, and are the heroic utterances of 
deeds ever memorable in her national history. 

National songs and patriotic symbols are 
next of kin to national emblems and flags. 

The origin of "Yankee Doodle" is some- 
what obscure. The statement that the air 
was composed by Dr. Shuckburg, in 1755, 
when the Colonial troops united with the 



Ballad and Song Literature. 49 

British regulars near Albany, for the conquest 
of Canada, and that it was produced in 
derision of the old-fashioned manners of the 
Provincial soldiers, when contrasted with those 
of the regulars, was published some years ago 
in a Boston musical magazine. 

But nobody seems to be certain as to the 
birth or parentage of this popular ditty, for 
its advent has been by some supposed to be 
traceable to the times of the Roundheads and 
Cavaliers. By others it has been said that 
the song came originally from Germany as a 
martial air, and was brought to America by 
the British surgeon above named. The tune 
(without the intended sarcastic words), it 
has been well said, " still lives to quicken the 
heart-beats of every loyal son of Columbia." 

The national song " Hail, Columbia 1 " 
was written by Joseph Hopkinson of Phila- 
delphia. The author informs us that it was 
composed in the summer of 1798, when a 
war with France was thought to be inevitable, 
and party-spirit was high. At this time a 
theatrical friend called upon him, requesting 
him to compose a patriotic song adapted to 
the tune of the "President's March," then the 



50 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

popular air. The request was urged on the plea 
that it might help to fill the theatre, on the 
occasion of his benefit. On the following 
day the song was presented, and announced 
to be sung on the next evening. It proved 
a great success ; and it was sung at every 
subsequent performance, the audience joining 
in the chorus with great enthusiasm. It 
was also sung often in the streets, by large 
assemblies of citizens, and its fame soon 
spread all over the United States. The object 
of the author was to awaken an American 
spirit, independent of the partisanship which 
then prevailed. 

Francis S. Key wrote our national anthem 
"The Star- Spangled Banner." It has a his- 
tory ; and the scene it describes was not the 
offspring of a patriotic and glowing imagina- 
tion, but real. The author tells us that he 
described what he actually saw and felt while 
witnessing the conflict, and the victory that 
followed. In 1814, when the song was writ- 
ten, the author was in Georgetown, a volun- 
teer in the light artillery, then in the service 
of the Government. 

They were in active service from the time 



Ballad and Song Literature. 51 

the British fleet entered the Patuxent, pre- 
paratory to the movement upon Washington. 
It was when Key w^as anxiously watching the 
attack of the British marines upon Baltimore, 
and after the bombardment upon Fort 
McHenry suddenly ceased, and he learned 
that they had abandoned it, that he wrote 
upon the back of a letter the outline of his 
immortal anthem. The following morning 
he handed a fair copy of it to his friend, who 
forthwith sent it to the printer, and copies 
were soon in every one's hands. Accord- 
ing to another account, he wrote the ode 
" while a prisoner on board a British vessel 
during the bombardment of Fort McHenry." 
Drake's fine patriotic ode to " The Ameri- 
can Flag," although of course famihar to the 
reader, should be noticed here : — 

" When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of Night, 

And set the stars of glory there I 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies, 
And striped its pure, celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light; 



52 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

And from his mansion in the sun, 
She called her eagle-bearer down, 
And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land ! " 

It is worthy of note that Fitz-Greene Hal- 
leck added the dimax to the ode, m the 
closmg stanza : — 

" Forever float that standard sheet ! 

Where breathes the foe but falls before us. 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? 

Well has it been said, that " as long as the 
Union stands, that poetic tribute of praise to 
the symbol of our nationality will thrill the 
hearts of those to whom our undivided land 
is dear." 

The " Marseillaise," the name by which 
the grand song of the French Revolution is 
known, OAves its existence to the following 
circumstances : In the early part of the year 
1792, when a column of volunteers was about 
to leave Strasburg, the mayor of the city, 
who gave a banquet on the occasion, asked 
an officer of the artillery, named Rouge t de 
risle to compose a song in their honor, as 



Ballad and Song Literature, 53 

he was known to have indulged in frequent 
improvisations. His request was compHed 
with ; and the result was the " Marseillaise," 
both words and music being the product of a 
single night. De I'lsle entitled the piece 
" Chant de Guerre de TArmee du Rhin." 
Next day it was sung with that rapturous 
enthusiasm that only Frenchmen can exhibit ; 
and instead of six hundred volunteers, one 
thousand marched out of Strasburg. It was 
first introduced at Paris by Barbaroux, when 
he summoned the volunteers in July, 1792. 
It was received with transports by the Pari- 
sians, who, ignorant of its real authorship, 
named it "Hymn des Marseillais," which 
name it has since retained. There is a 
picture in the Louvre, however, representing 
Rouget de ITsle singing this grand song of 
the revolution. It is however beheved, from 
the latest researches of musical scholars, both 
in France and Germany, that the melody was 
not composed by Rouget de I'lsle, but was 
copied by him from the Credo of the fourth 
mass of Holtzmann of Mursberg, who com- 
posed it in 1776; and it was first heard in 
Strasburg, in the hotel of Mme. de Montcs- 



54 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

son, in 1782. It has been said that "it 
embraces the soft cadences full of the peas- 
ant's home, and the stormy clangor of silver 
and steel when an empire is overthrown ; it 
endears the memory of the vinedresser's 
cottage, and makes the Frenchman in his 
exile cry, ' La Belle France ! ' forgetful of the 
torch, the sword, and the guillotine, which 
have made his country a spectre of blood in 
the eyes of the nations." Oh, what a mighty, 
devastating spirit went forth from these im- 
passioned words ! 

Leigh Hunt remarks, that, "though not 
of the very highest class of art, it is yet one of 
those genuine compositions, warm from the 
heart of a man of genius, which please alike 
the scientific and those who know nothing of 
music but the effect it has upon them. It 
has a truly grand movement, which even on 
the piano suggests the fulness of a band." 

Germany's patriotic national song, "Die 
Wacht am Rhein," was written in 1840, by 
Max Schneckenberger, w^hen war was thought 
to be impending with France. Both the 
words and the music of this stirring battle- 
song are remarkable, and the heroic chant 



Ballad and Song Literature. 55 

became the national song during the Franco- 
German war of 1870-71. The following is 
a translation of its opening stanza : — 

"There bursts a shout like thunder-peal, 
Like billows' roar, like clang of steel. 
The Rhine ! The Rhine of Germany ! 
Oh, who will her defenders be ? 
Dear fatherland, in peace recline, 
For steadfast stands our watch on Rhine ! " 

The Swiss national song is " Ranz des 
VachQs/' so called from the fact that the 
cattle, when answering the musical call of 
their keeper, move toward him in a row, 
preceded by those wearing bells. It is a 
simple melody of the Swiss mountaineers, 
commonly played on a long trumpet, or 
Alpine horn. This melody, when heard by 
Swiss soldiers away from home, is said to 
create, in a remarkable degree, nostalgia, or 
homesickness ; and hence its performance, 
by military bands of regiments containing 
such soldiers, is not allowed. 

Austria has her " Gott erhalte Franz der 
Kaiser ; " Prussia, her " Heil dem im Sieges- 
kranz ; " and Belgium, her ^' Braubanconne/' 



$6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Not only have there been, of old, national 
songs, but popular songs and songs of trades. 
'' The story . of Amphion building Thebes 
with his lyre was not a fable," says Dr. 
Clarke. " At Thebes, in the harmonious 
adjustment of those masses which remain 
belonging to the ancient walls, we saw 
enough to convince us that this story was no 
fable; for it was a very ancient custom to 
carry on immense labor by an accompani- 
ment of music and singing. The custom 
still exists, both in Egypt and Greece." 
Athenaeus has preserved the Greek najnes of 
different songs as sung by various trades, but 
unfortunately none of the songs themselves. 
Dr. Johnson refers to an "oar-song" used 
by the Hebrideans ; and also to the fact, that 
the strokes of the sickle were timed by the 
modulations of the " Harvest-song," in which 
all their voices were united. The gondoliers 
of Venice while away their long midnight 
hours on the water with the stanzas of Tasso, 
and fragments of Homer are sung by the 
Greek sailors of the Archipelago. Dibdin's 
nautical lyrics are a charm and a solace to all 
British tars, in long voyages, battles, and 



Ballad and Song Literature, 57 

storms; and even in mutinies, have been 
quoted to the restoration of order and disci- 
phne. 

" Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound ; 
She feels no hiting pang the while she sings, 
Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around, 
Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things," 



HUMAN SYMPATHY. 

JHERE are few words so full of ten- 
derness and affection as the word 
" sympathy : " it seems to belong to 
the cherished names of " mother," ^' home," 
and '^ heaven." It is likely to remain an unde- 
cided question, whether it is really possible to 
do a purely disinterested action ; for it is quite 
evident, that, in proportion as we exercise a 
generous spirit of self-denial for the good of 
others, we increase our individual happiness. 
Charity, we are told, begins at home ; but its 
evident mission is to go abroad on errands of 
mercy. Even the little, inexpensive courtesy 
of a smile to cheer the sad, or a cup of water 
to the thirsty, has its reward. It is well to 
have "a smile that children love." 

Charity, in whatever guise she appears, is 

the best-natured and the best-complexioned 

thing in the world. It would be cynical and 

unjust, indeed, to say or suppose that this 

5S 



Human Sympathy. 59 

queenly virtue has left our humanity ; for we 
have noble instances of beneficence amongst 
us to an extent unsurpassed by any previous 
age. 

" To meet the glad with cheerful smiles, or wipe the 
tearful eyes, 
With a heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and 
sympathize." 

To speak a kind word to the friendless, to 
feed the hungry, lift the fallen, and reclaim 
the wanderer to virtue, — not only impress 
true dignity upon the character, but furnish 
to the possessor of this heaven-born faculty 
a revenue of true happiness. 

We are accustomed to attribute the feeling 
of sympathy for the misfortunes of others 
to pure benevolence or good-nature ; but 
Burke in his analysis of it says, "The 
delight we have in such things hinders us 
from shunning scenes of misery, and the 
pain we feel prompts us to relieve ourselves 
in reheving those who suffer; and all this, 
antecedent to any reasoning, by an instinct 
that works us to its own purposes, without our 
concurrence." The same authority adds, 
^' Next to love, sympathy is the divinest 



6o Stray Leaves of Literature. 

passion of the human heart ; and a craving for 
sympathy — which few are found indifferent 
to — is said to be the common boundary-Hne 
between joy and sorrow.'/ Cowper has con- 
densed the statement thus, — 

** 'Tis woven in the world's great plan, and fixed by 

Heaven's decree, 
That all the true delights of man should spring 

from sympathy. 
Thus grief itself has comforts dear the sordid 

never know ; 
And ecstasy attends the tear when virtue bids it 

flow." 

To a favored few is given the rare and 
happy faculty of illustrating this beneficent 
ministry on a large scale, and thus ennobUng 
our human nature, and making beautiful the 
common places of Kfe. Such benefactors 
have — 

" A mind that is quick to perceive and know, 
A heart that can feel for another's woe ; 
With sympathies large enough to enfold 
All men as brothers." 

The principles of self-interest and self- 
denial, as the centre and circumference of 
human culture, rightly adjusted, form a sym- 



Human Sympathy. 6i 

metrical and well-balanced character; and, 
like the opposing forces of the universe, they 
maintain the moral equilibrium. Self-preser- 
vation is said to be the first law of nature ; 
and, on the other hand, we are taught in 
Holy Writ, that " no man liveth to himself," 
and that we should " love our neighbor as 
ourself." The requirement is unimpeachable. 
Self dominates all through life : it comes in 
with infancy ; and, gathering strength with 
maturity, rules without intermission, except 
when restrained and governed by Christian 
principle. Selfishness is diametrically op- 
posed to the genius of Christianity : to sac- 
rifice all to self, therefore, is the lowest form 
of idolatry. Utter self-abnegation or monk- 
ish asceticism, however, is not demanded : 
that is the opposite error. 

"Two principles in human nature reign, — 
Self-love to urge, and reason to restrain." 

While Christianity does not enjoin asceti- 
cism, it does demand sacrifice ; since love, in 
its essential character, is sacrificial. The 
standard is as high as the Decalogue, to 
which we avow allegiance, — at least, those 



62 stray Leaves of Literature. 

*^ who profess and call themselves Christians/' 

— and yet, — 

" Even in the best, who war with wild self-will, 
How oft some vanity betrays it still ! " 

It has been well said, that selfishness resem- 
bles the Caspian Sea, which has some unseen 
outlet for its waters, so that whatever rains 
come down, or rivers flow into it, its great 
gulf never fills, and never a rill runs out from 
it again : so there is a greedy, all- devouring 
selfishness, which, whatever rivers of pleasure 
flow into it, always contrives to dispose of 
the whole in the caverns and subterranean 
passages of its capacious egotism, — the vast 
mare intermim of self, without one drop 
overflowing in kindness to others. 

Take the selfishness out of this world, and 
there would be more happiness, it has been 
said, '* than we should know what to do with." 

" There is scarcely a man who is not con- 
scious of the benefits which his own mind 
has received from the performance of single 
acts of benevolence. How strange that so 
few of us try a course of the same medicine ! " 

Our real sympathies, also, are terribly con- 



Human Sympathy. 6;^ 

fined to our own class in society. How often 
maybe heard matrons, endowed with a retinue 
of children, express surprise that their domes- 
tic servants should ever desire " followers " ! 

Goldsmith's good-nature was illustrated in 
many recorded incidents. On one occasion 
he visited a poor woman, whose sickness he 
plainly saw was aggravated by her poverty; 
and, on his return home, he sent her a large 
pill-box containing a few sovereigns, with this 
inscription on the cover : " To be taken as 
occasion may require/* 

Horace Smith has well defined over-ween- 
ing self-love, as '' keeping the private I too 
much in the pubhc eye." Self-love, the 
greatest of flatterers, exaggerates both faults 
and virtues. But there is a great difference 
between such foolish vanity, and a judicious 
self-esteem and a proper self-reliance ; for the 
spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine 
growth and development. Self-love, within 
just limitations, — or what is its equivalent, 
the desire of happiness, — is inseparable from 
the nature of man as a rational and sensitive 
being. Bacon has said, " Self-respect is next 
to religion, the chiefest bridle of all the 



64 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

vices ; " and it may be said that respect for 
the claims of others no less governs our 
deportment and behavior. 

It has often been asked, What is happi- 
ness? — that phantom of which we hear so 
much, and see so httle ; whose promises are 
constantly given and constantly broken, but 
as constantly believed ; that cheats us with 
the sound instead of the substance, with the 
blossom instead of the fruit. Like a will-o'- 
the-wisp, it is sometimes farthest off when 
we imagine we can grasp it, and nearest to 
us when it appears to be at a distance. The 
most effectual way to secure it to ourselves 
is to confer it upon others. » 

Tuckerman, referring to sympathy, remarks, 
that ^^ it is one of the primal principles of 
efficient genius ; and that it is this truth 
of feeling which enabled Shakspeare to depict 
so strongly the various stages of passion, and 
the depth, growth, and gradations of senti- 
ment. It sometimes seems as if, along with 
childhood's ready sympathy, many of the 
other characteristics of that epoch were 
projected into the more mature stages of 
being. It is by their sympathy, their sincere 



Human Sympathy. 65 

and universal interest in humanity, that the 
sweetest poets and the dramatists are enabled 
to write in a manner corresponding with the 
heaven-attuned, umvritten music of the human 
heart." 

The following incident, illustrative of the 
sensibility as well as the modesty of true 
genius, may not be inopportune in this con- 
nection. When Barry the painter placed 
on exhibition one of his early pictures, so 
great was its excellence, that some one present 
in the gallery, on seeing it, expressed his 
doubt as to its being by the artist, his name 
then being unknown to fame. The remark 
affected him to tears ; and Edmund Burke, 
who was standing by him, noticing that Barry 
had retired to the ante-room in distress, 
followed him, and sought to comfort him. 
Barry, in the course of conversation, quoted 
some passage from "An Essay on the Sub- 
lime and Beautiful," which had recently been 
published anonymously, and which the artist 
praised very highly. Burke affected to sneer 
at it, when Barry showed even more feeling 
in his enthusiasm for the essay than he had 
evinced for his own picture. Burke then, 



66 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

smiling, acknowledged the authorship. " I 
could not afford to buy the work," said Barry, 
" but I have transcribed every line of it with 
my own hands ; " at the same time taking 
from his pocket the manuscript to show him. 
They clasped hands in enduring friendship. 

" Sweet Charity, the child of God! 
Who would not sound her praise abroad? 
Who, when she sees the sufferer bleed, 
Reckless of name or sect or creed, 
Comes with prompt hand and look benign, 
To bathe his wounds in oil and wine; 
Who m her robe the sinner hides, 
And soothes and pities while she chides ; 
Who lends an ear to every cry, 
And asks no plea but misery. 
Her tender mercies freely fall, 
Like heaven's refreshing dews, on all ; 
Encircling in their wide embrace 
Her friends, her foes, — the human race." 

Shakspeare points, among other reasons, 
'^You are not young, no more am I; go to, 
then, there's sympathy." As an instance of 
the absurd in sympathy, the " Tin Trumpet " 
supplies the following : — 

^'A city damsel whose ideas had been 
Arcadianized by the perusal of pastorals, 



Human Sympathy. 67 

having once made an excursion to a distance 
of twenty miles from London, wandered into 
the fields in the hope of discovering a l?07ia' 
fide live ^ shepherd.' To her delight, she at 
length encountered one, under a hawthorn 
hedge in full blossom, with his dog by his 
side, his crook in his hand, and his sheep 
round about him, just as if he were sitting to 
be modelled in china for a chimney orna- 
ment. But our swain wanted the indispen- 
sable accompaniment of a pastoral reed, in 
order that he might beguile his solitude w^ith 
the charms of music. Touched with pity at 
this privation, and lapsing unconsciously into 
poetical language, the civic damsel exclaimed, 
'Ah, gentle shepherd, tell me where's your 
pipe ? ' — 'I left it at home, miss,' replied the 
clown, scratching his head, ' 'cause I ha'nt got 
no baccy.' " 

There is a local sympathy in which we 
cannot well be mistaken, and which it is 
lamentable not to possess ; for " that man," 
to use the words of Dr. Johnson, " is little to 
be envied, whose patriotism would not gain 
force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose 
piety would not grow warmer among the 
ruins of lona." 



68 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Steele gives us this practical summary : — 
" There are none who deserve superiority 
over others, in the esteem of mankind, who 
do not make it their endeavor to be benefi- 
cial to society ; and who, upon all occasions 
which their circumstances of life can admin- 
ister, do not take a certain unfeigned pleasure 
in conferring benefits of one kind or other. 
It is in every man's power, . who is above 
mere poverty, not only to do things worthy, 
but heroic. The great foundation of civil 
virtue is self-denial ; and there is no one, 
above the necessities of Hfe, but has opportu- 
nities of exercising that noble quality. The 
most miserable of all beings is the most 
envious, while the most communicative is 
among the happiest." 



THE SEASONS AND THEIR 
CHANGE. 

. " To him who in the love of Nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language." — Bryant. 




IKE the glad dawn ushering in the 
winged hours of day, the jocund 
Spring heralds the successive changes 
of the seasons. The very name, Spring, is 
suggestive of budding blossoms and fragrant 
flowers ; while the radiant sheen of summer 
skies prepares us for the mellow tints and 
gorgeous hues of autumn, with her varied 
fruits and golden grain. At last creeps on, 
with stealthy steps, grim Winter with his 
chilling breath, his frozen rivers, leafless for- 
ests, and snow-clad landscapes. Well may 
the poet indite his song of welcome to the 
new-born Spring : — 

" 'Tis sweet, in the green spring, to gaze upon the 

wakening fields around : 

Birds in the thicket sing, winds whisper, waters 

prattle from the ground ; 

A thousand odors rise, 

Breathed up from blossoms of a thousand dyes." 

69 



70 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

The vernal season — which Mrs. Barbauld 
apostrophizes as '^ the sweet daughter of a 
rough and stormy sire, hoar Winter's bloom- 
ing child " — comes to us wreathed with smiles, 
and perfumed with fragrant incense. There- 
fore, the tuneful bards are vocal with her 
praise. 

" I marked the Spring, as she passed along, 
With her eye of light and her lip of song ; 
While she stole, in peace, o'er the green earth's 

breast, 
While the streams sprang out from their icy rest ; 
The buds bent low to the breeze's sigh. 
And their breath went forth to the scented sky; 
When the fields looked fresh in their sweet repose, 
And the young dews slept on the new-born rose." 

There is a feehng of mingled sadness and 
hope often felt with the incoming spring, 
which it is not easy to define. The secret, 
silent forces of Nature in her reviving life, 
as seen in the more genial atmosphere, the 
slow lengthening of the day, the bursting 
of buds and blossoms, and the carolling of 
the early birds, — all which are full of signifi- 
cance, and suggestive of the mutations which 
are in a similar manner going on with our- 



The Seasons and their Change. ' 71 

selves. In the realm of physical nature the 
old skeleton trees of the forest are being 
re-clothed with the new fohage, the dead 
flowers are quickened into life and beauty 
again, and all animated things rejoice with 
gladness. We, too, are borderers of both 
worlds, — the dead past and the living present, 
— and we instinctively are stirred by these 
inarticulate teachings of Nature ; for they re- 
mind us of that border-land wherein perpet- 
ual spring- tide abides, and death is unknown. 
What more beautiful description of the glories 
of Spring can be found than this from Solo- 
mon's Song ! " Lo, the winter is past, the 
rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear 
on the earth ; the time of the singing of birds 
is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard 
in our land." This beautiful tribute, it should, 
however, be remembered, was written for the 
far-distant Orient, and not this Western hemi- 
sphere and these our modern days. With us 
the fairy nymph is usually accompanied with 
that blustering, rude Boreas, who causes such 
boisterous excitement and discomfiture to our 
visual and olfactory nerves, while seeking to 
awaken Nature from her long sleep of winter. 



T2 stray Leaves of Literature. 

While we deprecate the infliction of these 
personal incivilities, these winds yet serve 
useful purposes in the economy of Nature. 
Hood has turned his facile and felicitous 
pen as evidence against the laudations of his 
brother bards, in the following deprecatory 
lines : — 

*' ' Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness, come ! ' 

O Thomson ! — void of rhyme as well as reason — 
How couldst thou thus poor human nature ////;// ? 

There's no such season ! 
Let others eulogize her floral shows, 

From me they cannot win a single stanza ; 
I know her blooms are in full blow, — and so's 

The influenza ! 
Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale; 

Her honey-blossoms that you hear the bees at; 
Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, — 

Are things I sneeze at ! " 

Among the earliest and prettiest of Spring's 
star-shaped flowers is the primrose. It is 
refreshing both to the eye and the heart to 
look upon it ; for it has a peculiar charm and 
delicacy in its golden hue, unlike that of other 
yellow wayside flowers. Izaak Walton was a 
great lover of primroses, which were among 
those he considered "too beautiful to be 



The Seasons and their Change. 73 

looked upon except on holidays.'^ He tells us 
how he was once sitting under a beech-tree, 
when " the birds in an adjoining grove seemed 
to have a friendly contention with an echo, 
whose dead voice seemed to live in a hollow 
tree near to the brow of that primrose hill.'^ 

The fitful month of April, with its alternat- 
ing smiles and tears, has been thus apostro- 
phized : — 

" Sighing, storming, singing, smiling, with her many 
modes beguilmg, 
April walks the wakening earth; 
Wheresoe'er she looks and lingers, wheresoe'er she 
lays her fingers, 
Some new charm starts into birth ; 
Fitful clouds about her sweeping, coming, going, 
frowning, weeping, — 
Melt in fertile blessings round." 

The ^^queen-month of the calendar" has 
been the chosen theme of many bards, from 
Chaucer to Tennyson. Milton thus hymns 
her praise : — 

*' The flowery May, who from her green lap throws 
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose. 
Hail, beauteous May ! that dost inspire 
Mirth and youth and fond desire : 



74 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Woods and groves are of thy dressing, 
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing; 
Thus we salute thee with our grateful song, 
And welcome thee, and wish thee long." 

May is synonymous with sunny weather, 
and by poetical Ucense has been styled the 
bridal season of nature and its honeymoon, 
since the tuneful feathered tribes are vocal, 
and the other orders of animated creatures 
seem to keep in harmony with them ; while — 

**Buds are filling, leaves are swelling, flowers on 
field, and bloom on tree ; 
And o'er the earth and air and ocean. Nature 
holds her jubilee." 

No longer are seen enacted the old-time 
festivities of the rural May-queen ; but in our 
more prosaic life, some denizens of New York, 
at least, are amusing themselves with changing 
their local habitations. 

"Thus Nature, decked in bravest dress, 
And fed with genial, fertile showers. 
Laughs out amid her sweet IMay flowers, 
That blush for very happiness." 

Coleridge's couplet now suggests itself as 
we leave the delicate-footed May, and hail the 
floral month of June : — 



The Seasons and their Change, 75 

" Many a hidden brook, in this leafy month of June, 
To the sleeping woods all night singeth a quiet 
tune." 

Towards the close of this month the hay- 
making and garnering of the grain com- 
mence in some parts of the comitry. What 
can be more delicious to the sense than the 
scent of flowers and the new-mown meadows? 

Summer's advent awakens in all hearts a 
welcome and responsive joy, for it is the 
season of joy and melody and love ; when 
" Nature, crowned and garlanded with flowers, 
walks forth a rustic queen through field and 
grove, or decks with regal pomp her fairest 
bowers." In midsummer comes the longest 
day, and Wordsworth's poem on it naturally 
suggests itself : — 

" Evening now unbinds the fetters fashioned by the 
glowing light ; 

All that breathe are thankful debtors to the har- 
binger of night. 

Yet, by some grave thoughts attended, eve reviews 
her calm career; 

For the day that now is ended is the longest of the 
year ! 

Summer ebbs ; each day that follows is a reflex 
from on high, 

Tending to the darksome hollows where the frosts 
of winter lie." 



^6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

" So long is the day at this time of the 
year," writes a lover of nature/ ^^ that, being 
awakened at half-past two in the morning, I 
saw unmistakable indications of the dawn, 
and heard not one, but many, birds already in 
full song. Those who have not seen it can 
have little conception of the strange and 
magical beauty of a summer morning at this 
hour. The stars were all gone, but the thin 
moon was rising in the east. The sun would 
soon follow after, and the saffron color of the 
day was already passing over the sky and 
tinging the clouds. I know of no other 
appearance in nature which gives the same 
idea of soft, quiet, gradual, and yet altogether 
certain and irresistible subjugation. It is the 
kingdom of light driving out the kingdom of 
darkness. On the same day the birds were 
still singing at half-past nine in the evening. 
On other occasions I have heard the thrush 
as late as ten o'clock." 

In the sultry Summer, when Sol is in the 
ascendant, he gives to us such an ardent 
greeting, that we sometimes wish it were a 
little more moderate. Midsummer is high 

I IMilner. 



The Seasons and their Change. 77 

noon of the year, a kind of halfway stopping 
place, reminding us of the meridian of life, — 
a point in our history when we may take a 
review of the past, and a glance at the future 
of our career. We all admit the truth of the 
lines : — 

" The more we live, more brief appears our life's 
succeeding stages ; 

A day to childhood seems a year, and years like 
passing ages. 

Heaven gives our years of fading strength indem- 
nifying fleetness, 

And those of youth a seeming length, proportion- 
ate to their sweetness." 

Summer time in the country is a theme of 
such deep interest that to attempt even a 
passing allusion to it, would, it is feared, but 
tempt us to ramble too widely among its 
clustered beauties ; and so our glance must 
be a brief one. Not to speak of the grand 
ancestral trees of the woods and fields, how 
much of leafy splendor does Summer deck 
herself withal, while the delicate beauty of 
the leaves and their great variety of form no 
less excite our wonder. 

The radiant skies are now blending into 



yS Stray Leaves of Literature. 

the mellow tints of russet Autumn, who, with 
her hand grasped in the feeble clasp of 
Summer, as if the latter were loath to depart, 
still retains much green hanging about the 
woods, and much blue and sunshine about 
the sky and earth. But the leaves are rustling 
in the forest paths, the harvest-fields are silent, 
and the heavy fruit that bows down the 
branches proclaims that the labor of Summer 
is ended, that her yellow-robed sister has 
come to gather in and garner the rich treas- 
ures she has left behind. "Forest scenery 
never looks so beautiful as in the autumn- 
time : it is then that Nature seems to have 
exhausted all the fantastic colors of her 
palette, and to have scattered her richest red, 
brown, yellow, and purple upon the foliage.'' 
Like some richly illuminated manuscript of 
mediaeval art, the wonder book of nature 
spreads open to our gaze its brilHant pages. 

As Summer departs, the winds are freshly 
blowing, and the Autumn has come with its 
rich fruitage. The spirit of the year, risen 
violet-crowned from the pure snows of Winter, 
and expanded into the glories of Summer's 
radiant noon, now brings to us her golden 



The Seasons and their Change. 79 

sheaves and luscious fruits. The roses that 

blossomed along her pathway have faded 

away ; but, like the good deeds of charity, 

their perfume, like a memory, still loads the 

atmosphere with their fragrance. Yes, the sad 

refrain is, — 

*' The birds have ceased their singing ; sheafed is the 
golden corn ; 
The bees have ceased their winging 'mid flowers at 
early morn." 

Scores of eloquent passages migfet be cited 
from our bards, but we scarcely need the 
inspiration of their utterances. Nature her- 
self is an all-potent inspiration. While wan- 
dering, in imagination, in the leafy lanes, and 
among the anemones which love to grow 
in wood-shaded nooks, or little openings 
between the trees where the dark-blue hya- 
cinths and the fair and fragrant violets delight 
to blow, we also note the fading and falhng 
beauties of leafy autumn, strewed along our 
pathway. Thus frail and fleeting is the 
cherished gift of beauty. Yet is there com- 
pensation ; since, though frail, these — 

" Leaves of all hues, — green, gold, and red, — ruins 
of summer bowers, 
Ye look almost as beautiful as did her choicest 
flowers." 



8o Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Autumn, that ^^ season of mist and mellow 
fruitfulness," has been styled the sabbath 
of the year; yet Bryant, it will be remem- 
bered, sings thus mournfully : — 

" The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the 
year ; 
And wailing winds and naked woods, and meadow 
brown and sere." 

The sere and yellow leaf now greets us, 
where, a short time since, all was verdant and 
blooming with floral glories, and Nature has 
doffed her gay attire ; yet is there great 
beauty, even in her blanched and frozen fields 
and streams. Shelley has sung sweetly the 
dirge of the dying year : — 

*' The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are 

dying ; 
Come, months, come away ; in your saddest array 
Follow the bier of the dead, cold year." 

One of the most beautiful objects in a 
Winter landscape is the holly-bush, hung with 
bright green leaves and crimson berries. 

" Gone are the Summer hours, the birds have left 
the bowers, 
While the holly-tree retains its hue, nor changes 
like the flowers. 



The Seasons and their Change. 8i 

On its armed leaf reposes the berries, red as roses ; 

'Tis always seen in red and green, while grim old 
Winter dozes ; 

It awakens old affections, in Christmas recollec- 
tions ; 

And as it glows, a soft veil throws o'er all our 
imperfections." 

"Holly, ivy, and mistletoe are English 
household words ; though ivy is not used so 
much now in our Christmas decorations as in 
former years. It is the greatest ornament 
that Time throws around his ruins, seeming 
as if he had a wish to bury the dead past out 
of his sight, and cover the remains with some- 
thing green and beautiful. Dreary indeed 
would be the dark days of Winter, were they 
not illumined by the domestic fireside groups, 
and the joyous gatherings and greetings of its 
festive seasons of Christmas and the advent 
of the new year." 

Thus have "the seasons and their change" 
glided in their glowing beauty, but all too 
swiftly, before the mental vision. To a 
reflective mind, these alternations suggest 
many an instructive and admonitory hint. 
Summer's radiant skies and golden sunsets 



82 stray Leaves of Literature. 

remind us of the sunlit hours of social life, 
while the briefer days of darkness and storm 
reflect our intervals of affliction and sorrow. 
Both conditions alike conserve our highest 
interests, as well in the kingdom of morals as 
of physics. 

Each of the four seasons has its own pecul- 
iar charm and beauty, and blesses us with its 
influence. 

" For years and seasons as they run ; 
For winter's cloud and summer's sun; 
For seed-time and for autumn's store, 
In due succession evermore ; 
For flower and fruit, for herb and tree, — 
Lord, we are thankful unto thee." 

In surveying thus cursively the rotation of 
the seasons, we naturally think of the rapid 
flight of Time, — itself, indeed, but a myth or 
shadow, and yet, being coeval with life itself, 
our most valuable possession. What is its 
lesson ? 

" I asked the golden sun and silver spheres, — 
Those bright chronometers of days and years. 
They answer, * Time is but a meteor's glare,' 
And bade me for eternity prepare. 



The Seasons and their Change. 83 

I asked the seasons, in their annual round, — 
Which beautify or desolate the ground, — 
And they replied (no oracle more wise !), 
*'Tis folly's blank, and wisdom's highest prize.' " 

We have to confess : " We take no note 
of time, but from its loss.'^ Although we 
cannot possibly arrest its progress, we may 
yet stop a minute, and consider its value. 



PHYSIOGNOMY. 

**LlFE HATH ITS LEGEND IN EVERY LOOK." 

|N meeting with " friend, neighbor, or 
I acquaintance," we instinctively look 
t{ the person in the face, because in it 
we expect to ^n^ prima facie evidence of char- 
acter. Nor are we often disappointed. The 
face is to the individual what the title page is to 
the book, or the dial to the watch, — an index 
to what is within. Another analogy is seen in 
the facial varieties of the lower orders of crea- 
tion, and we need not wonder that similar varie- 
ties are equally apparent among " the paragon 
of animals." Let us, then, examine the " human 
face divine " in detail, and scan some of its 
protean diversities. Vfrote an acknowledged 
authority, " No study, mathematics excepted, 
more justly deserves to be termed a science 
than physiognomy. We all have some sort 
of intuitive method by which we form our 
opinions; and though our rules for judging 
84 



Physiognomy. 85 

of men from their appearance may some- 
times fail, we still continue to trust in them, 
and naturally feel surprised if a vacant-look- 
ing man should prove extremely sagacious, 
or a morose-looking one should give us evi- 
dence of his kind disposition by performing 
some generous and disinterested action. 
There is an almost universal standard of cor- 
respondencies between the facial expression, 
and the interior souls of men; yet it is 
admitted that the criteria by which we judge 
are, to some extent, liable to error, being 
controlled by the ever-varying circumstances 
and differences of the habits and idiosyncra- 
sies of men.'* 

Faces are as legible as books, with this 
difference in their favor, that they may be 
perused in much less time than printed pages, 
and are less liable to be misunderstood. The 
body and the mind — the sign and the thing 
signified — correspond ; in the visible, the 
invisible is, to a great extent, revealed. Let 
us look our subject in the face, and, according 
to our instinctive custom, look into the eyes, 
— those "windows of the soul." How elo- 
quently they speak ! 



86 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

It has been well said, " Speech is a laggard 
and a sloth, but the eyes shoot out an electric 
fluid that condenses all the elements of senti- 
ment and passion in one single emanation. 
Conceive what a boundless range of feeling 
is included between the two extremes of the 
look serene and the smooth brow, and the 
contracted frown with the glaring eye. What 
varieties of sentiment in the mer€ fluctuation 
of its lustre, from the fiery flash of indigna- 
tion to the twinkle of laughter, the soft 
beaming of compassion, and the melting ra- 
diance of love ! " 

" Ye who know the reason, tell us how it is that 

instinct still 
Prompts the heart to like, or dislike, at its own 

capricious will. 
Why should smiles sometimes repel us, bright 

eyes turn our feelings cold? 
What the secret power that tells us, all that glitters 

is not gold ? " 

But the visual organs deserve yet closer 
scrutiny : they should be examined, not physi- 
ologically, but philosophically and poetically ; 
since a brace of bright eyes has had much to 
answer for, from the days of Helen of Troy 



Physiognomy. 87 

down to this present time. Whatever of good- 
ness emanates from the soul, gathers its soft 
halo in the eyes ; and if the heart be a lurking- 
place of crime, the eyes are sure to betray 
the secret. A beautiful eye makes silence 
eloquent, a kind eye makes contradiction an 
assent, an enraged eye makes beauty deform- 
ity : so you see, forsooth, the little organ plays 
no inconsiderable, if not a dominant, part. 
What purity and innocence beam from the 
eye of a child ! How it glows with the radi- 
ancy of light and love ! — pity it should ever 
become clouded ! 

As to the aesthetic discussion of "starry 
eyes," the poets and the painters are much 
divided in their choice between the lustrous 
brilliancy of the dark, and the softer glow 
caught from the azure sky above us. How 
shall we decide their claims ? 

** There's witchery in the eyes of brown, and some- 
times softness too ; 
But gentleness, we ne'er forget, in the calm eyes 
of blue." 

From eyes, the descent is easy and natural 
to noses. The nasal is a prominent feature 



88 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

in the face ; and yet it is a noticeable fact, 
that, however correct and upright may be its 
owner, the nose is rarely, if ever, quite 
straightforward : so that the claim seems to 
involve a contradiction, since every one is 
said to follow, or be led by, the nose. Noses 
are of great variety as to size and shape; 
but it is not necessary to describe them, as 
they are ever protruding themselves upon our 
notice. There is supposed to be an index of 
character in a nose ; and, when the organ is 
well developed, it has been judged indicative 
of strength of character. Some rhymester, 
whose name has escaped our memory, thus 
facetiously dilates upon this foremost and 
leading feature of the face : — 

" How very odd that poets should suppose 
There is no poetry about a nose, 
When, plain as is man's nose upon his face, 
A nose-less face would lack poetic grace ! 
Noses have sympathy, a lover knows ! 
Noses are always touched when lips are kissing ; 
And who would care to kiss, if nose were missing? 
Why, what would be the fragrance of a rose. 
And where would be the mortal means of telling 
Whether a vile or wholesome odor flows 
Around us, if we owned no sense of smelling } 



Physiognomy, 89 

I know a nose, — a nose no other knows, — 
'Neath starry eyes, o'er ruby lips it grows; 
Beauty its form, and music in its blows." 

More might be said about noses, were it 
necessary ; indeed, a book has been pubHshed 
on '' Nasology," of nearly three hundred 
pages, — a fact that of itself ought to inspire 
us with great respect for that leading feature 
in all faces. This writer seems to insist that 
there is truth in the theory of certain noses 
being indicative of character, and assigns to 
the Romano-Greek nose the greatest honor 
and distinction. 

Noses are indicative of character, doubt- 
less since there are many distinctive varieties 
of them, such as the graceful, or aquiline ; 
the Roman, or heroic ; and the botde-nose, 
from its owner's proclivity to intemperance in 
drinking. There are many other minor dis- 
tinctions of the nasal organ, but they need 
not be defined. The nose is not only a 
prominent and central feature of the face, but 
it is a very useful and essential auxiliary in 
daily life. By its nice discriminations we 
distinguish odors ; and as with the palate, are 
.we governed in matters of taste by its decis- 



90 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

ions. From the nose we descend to the 
mouth, — a yet more indispensable member, 
since it is not only the organ of speech, but 
the inlet to the inexorable stomach, which is 
so frequent in its demands upon our atten- 
tion. But this feature in the face of beauty 
is, by its laws, required to be small ; and it 
would be both ungallant and useless for us to 
attempt to enlarge upon it. There is one 
mark of honorable distinction that social 
usage has conferred upon the mouth, which 
might be mentioned, — that of kissing. How 
many plighted vows and pledges of affection 
have been ratified and sealed with a kiss ! 
But of lovers' sighs that are breathed through 
the hps, it belongs not to the purport of this 
paper to speak. 

Nature has endowed us with dual organs 
in some, but not all, instances : while we have 
two eyes and two ears, we have but one nose 
and one mouth. But we ought to be con- 
tent and thankful for the wonderful equip- 
ments we possess, and make the best use of 
them, since they are indispensable endow- 
ments, as well as ornamental. 

What a mystery appertains to our organs 



Physiognomy. 91 

of sense, — those "five gateways of knowl- 
edge ! " They are not only the media of our 
enjoyment, but also of our intelligence, and 
intercourse with one another and with the 
objects of the outer w^orld. By the visual 
organ we read the illuminated book of nature ; 
and by the auditory nerve we are enabled to 
enjoy the thrilling harmonies of music and the 
gentle accents of kindly speech, as well as 
the ever welcome songs of the minstrels 
of the woods. 

In passing along the crowded thorough- 
fares of the city, the physiognomist has an 
opportunity of studying the almost unlimited 
varieties of faces, from the classic mould of 
beauty to the opposite, of deformity. It is 
the prerogative of virtuous age to wear a kind 
of spiritual beauty ; and yet even the happiest 
do not always evince their happiness in their 
faces, nor the sorrowing ones their griefs. 

Among the multitudinous groups that pass 
along, not a few have the impress of care and 
trouble, and some even in early life ; while 
others flit by us with gayety and the glow of 
happiness, not only in the jocund spring-time, 
but occasionally in the late autumn of life, 



92 stray Leaves of Literature. 

who seem to retain much of their youthful 
vivacity. 

Even if features are not handsome, the 
contour may be pleasing if Hghted up with 
good temper ; and it has been well said that 
smiles are always much more becoming than 
frowns. Even " a homely face " may be illu- 
minated by a smile. Who does not indorse 
these lyric lines of a modern minstrel ? 

" Some faces are supremely fair, some sparkling in 
their splendor ; 

Some are demure, some debonair^ and some divinely 
tender. 

Some win us with a fatal glance from eyes too 
brightly beaming ; 

Some witching smiles hearts so entrance, that life 
is lost in dreaming. 

And some, some faces sorrow-kissed, when holiest 
thoughts are thronging, 

Come back, — come always in the mist of everlast- 
ing longing." 

"What can be more significant than the 
sudden flushing and confusion of a blush, 
than the sparklings of rage, and the lightnings 
of a smile? The soul is, as it were, visible 
upon these occasions ; the passions ebb and 
flow in the cheeks, and are much better distin- 



Physiognomy. 93 

guished in their progress than the change of 
the air in a weather-glass. A face well fur- 
nished out by nature, and a little disciplined, 
has a great deal of rhetoric in it. A grace- 
ful presence bespeaks acceptance, gives a force 
to language, and helps to convince by look 
and posture." ' 

For example, there is the earnest and 
energetic glance of the American ; the slower 
and graver aspect of the British ; the mercurial 
vivacity of the French ; and the phlegmatic 
lethargy of the German, whose philosophic 
mind, dwelling in " the realm of the higher 
thought," sees nothing clearly, except through 
the cloudy envelope of smoke. 

Some writer has said, " There is no single 
object presented to our senses which en- 
grosses so large a share of our thoughts, 
emotions, and associations, as that small por- 
tion of flesh and blood a hand may cover, 
and which constitutes the human face. 
There is nothing we gaze upon with such 
admiration, think of with so much fondness, 
long for with such yearning, and remember 
with such fidehty ; nothing that gladdens us 

^ Jeremy Collier. 



94 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

with such magic power, haunts us with such 
fearful pertinacity, — common as it is, meet- 
ing us at every turn." The face is not hke 
the hand or the foot : it is the only, the uni- 
versally accepted proof of identity ; and it is 
the sole proof of it which is instantaneous, — 
an evidence not collected by effort, but con- 
stantly recognizable. What bewildering con- 
fusions and fatal mistakes would inevitably 
result to society at large, were it otherwise ! 
This instinctive faculty, by which we identify 
our fellow-creatures by their faces, leads us to 
discriminate their characters. Thus our faces 
may be said to be our friends or our foes, 
according to facial developments. What we 
should do without faces, is a problem the 
reader is at liberty to solve for himself. 




THE MYSTERY OF MUSIC. 

j|HE natural history of music is a 
profound mystery. Its empire is 
the emotions, and its results are the 
most refining and inspiring upon the race. 
Its origin, or source, must be sought in the 
depths of our being; at every step we ad- 
vance in the inquiry, we but decipher what is 
written within us, not transcribing any thing 
from without. Music has a history, too, full 
of marvels : it fascinates not only human 
hearts and ears, but most of the subordinate 
creatures. 

Still the question returns, What is Music ? 
and it is as old as all history, classic and 
modern. Many theories have been offered. 
Herbert Spencer supposes, that ** all music was 
originally vocal ; and that all vocal sounds 
being produced by the agency of muscles, 
and that muscles are subject to contraction 
by pleasurable or painful sensations, therefore, 

95 



96 Sh^ay Leaves of Literature, 

feeling demonstrates itself in sound as well 
as in motion. The muscles that move the 
chest, larynx, and vocal chords, contracting 
like other muscles in proportion to the intensity 
of the feelings ; every different contraction of 
these muscles involving, as it does, a different 
adjustment of the vocal organs, causing a 
change in the sound emitted ; and it follows 
that all kinds of vocal expression must be 
sought in this general relation between men- 
tal and muscular excitements." To which 
hypothesis, it has been urged by another au- 
thority,' that " music is not a human invention, 
but is part and parcel of nature. The laws 
of vibration, for instance, are as immutable as 
are those of gravity. The forms of vibration 
are determined by the great mechanical law 
of the parallelogram of forces. The manner 
in which a string vibrates is one of the most 
wonderful things in nature. The human ear 
is of a most marvellous and intricate con- 
struction ; and its wonders and complications 
have for the sole object the distinguishing of 
musical sounds, with regard to pitch and 
quahty : a comparatively simple arrangement 

I Rice. 



The Mystery of Music. 97 

would have sufficed for the requirements of 
language. There is the human throat, with 
its remarkable arrangement for the purpose of 
song alone, A far inferior construction would 
have served the purpose of language, or for 
the production of sound incidental to muscu- 
lar excitement. But leaving the consideration 
of special contrivances, and casting our eyes 
on the broad expanse of nature, what an 
enormous provision is made for music ! What 
an immense material is placed under its con- 
trol ! It can subject to its use almost all 
things that exist in space. The atmosphere 
ever prone to originate music, is always pre- 
pared to mediate between the producing in- 
strument and the ear. Water, too, is an 
originator and mediator of musical sounds. 
All solid bodies have a proneness for music. 
Before man appeared on the face of the earth, 
the waves of the y^gean sea sang their mourn- 
ful tones ; the waters sounded forth sad music, 
as they rushed through Fingal's Cave, or spent 
themselves in violent breakers on the German 
shore. Did not singing birds exist before the 
time of man? Did they evolve their singing 
from speech, or did they develop it from 



98 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

muscular excitement, or did they sing be- 
cause it was natural for them to sing? And 
the original man sang before he talked. Music 
is natural : language is artificial. Language is 
local : music is universal. Music is greatly 
aided by language, but it does not depend 
upon it : rather, language depends on 
music." 

" Who is there, however, that can, in logical 
words, express the effect music has on us?" 
asks Carlyle : and he thus attempts the an- 
swer : '' A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable 
speech, which leads us to the edge of the 
infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into 
that !" Luther, who was a great lover of 
music for its own sweet sake, beheved it pos- 
sessed an exorcising power over evil spirits. ^ 
He defined music as the art of the prophets, 
the only art that can calm the agitations of 
the soul, and one of the most magnificent 
and delightful presents God has given us." 

" Our joys below it can improve, 
And antedate the bliss above." 

Music, apart from words, expresses senti- 
ments and emotions which fill the mind with 



The Mystery of Music. 99 

sensations of indefinable pleasure. When 
linked with words, it becomes an eloquent and 
beautiful illustration of language : — 

" Music ! oh, how faint, how weak, 
Language fails before thy spell ! " 

Wrote Legh Richmond, "I am persuaded 
tliat music is designed to prepare for heaven, 
to educate for the choral enjoyment of para- 
dise." It cannot be questioned, that, of all 
delights to those who have the gift or taste 
for it, music is the most exquisite. 

In the Bible, the invention of musical in- 
struments is ascribed to Jubal, as being the 
*^ father of such as handle harp and organ." 
The invention of instruments, at this early 
age of the world, implies the previous exist- 
ance of vocal music. It is impossible to 
determine exactly what kind of instruments 
may have been then known, which the trans- 
lators have rendered " harp and organ." 
During the reigns of David and Solomon, the 
most splendid period of Jewish history, this 
art seems to have been at its height among 
that people. David was himself a musician ; 
and his inspired lyrics, the Psalms, were set 



loo stray Leaves of Literature. 

to music under his direction. Music, like 
other arts, had attained to some cultivation in 
Egypt, and from thence to Greece and Rome. 
According to Homer, music was in constant 
use during the Trojan war. 

In the " Iliad " and ^' Odyssey " are many 
exquisite descriptions of the divine art, and 
its fascinating power. Music has its asso- 
ciation in morals as an art, its right and 
its wrong, its high and its low, like painting 
and sculpture, poetry, etc. There is also a 
mystery about it which baffles our scrutiny ; 
because, while we know how sound may be 
produced, we yet cannot explain how it pro- 
duces the effect it does upon us. Elemen- 
tal sounds are familiar to us, — the moaning 
of the wind, or the monotone of surging sea- 
waves. But a noise is not a musical note, 
nor the distant roar of a tumultuous city the. 
same as the musical changes of a peal of 
bells. The human ear is sensible alike to 
sounds concordant and discordant. '^ The 
quality of music," it is said, " depends on the 
mode of vibration, the number, order, and 
intensity of the vibrations of the over- tones in 
a * clang,' which determine timlwe or quality, 



The Mystery of Music. loi 

and make the differences between the same 
note sounded on a violin, piano, harp, and 
flute." Music was held in the highest esti- 
mation among the Greeks : it was deemed 
an accomplishment fitting the highest rank 
and gravest character. It is stated on good 
authority, that the Greek music was, like the 
Scottish, inspired by mountain scenery and 
heroic action. 

Sacred music formed an important part of 
the ritual of ancient worship , and such it has 
ever continued, both of the Jewish and Chris- 
tian churches. In the Romish Communion 
this is especially true, it being cultivated in 
a very elaborate and artistic manner in all 
countries. About the middle of the fourth 
century, regular choirs were introduced into 
the churches : these were divided into two 
parts, and made to sing alternately or re- 
sponsively. This was called antiphonal 
singing : and in this species of music, a cer- 
tain phrase of.melody, after having been sung 
by one portion of the choristers, is echoed by 
the others, at certain distances, and at a 
higher or lower pitch ; and the successive ac- 
cumulation of these different masses of sound, 



102 Stray Leaves of Liter ature. 

into one grand and harmonious whole, pro- 
duces the greatest effects of which music is 
susceptible. Of such effects, sublime in- 
stances are to be found in the choruses of 
Handel and of other great masters. 

Secular music was much cultivated in 
England during the sixteenth century. 
Queen Elizabeth herself was a musician ; and 
a MS. book of music, known as her "Vir- 
ginal book," is still preserved in the British 
Museum. Mary of Scotland, the unfortunate 
queen, was also an accompHshed musician. 

Every civilized nation has its characteristic 
music, as it has its vernacular speech. Each 
composer, also, has his own special charm : 
Mozart, Handel, Beethoven, Bach, Mendel- 
ssohn, Haydn, Wagner, and others thrill us 
with such delicious strains as — 

"Dissolve our souls in ecstasies, 
And bring all heaven before our eyes ! " 

It is related of Beethoven, who has contrib- 
uted so largely to the delight of mankind by 
his musical skill, that he had but one happy 
moment in his life, and that killed him. He 
lived in poverty and seclusion, without friends 



The Mystery of Music. 103 

or succor of any kind ; and yet he spoke to 
the world in strains of the subUmest melody, 
to which his contemporaries would not deign 
to listen. He became deaf, to add to his 
misfortunes. Living at Baden in Germany, 
he was accustomed to wander about a 
neighboring forest, alone with the birds ; and 
there he composed some of his grand sym- 
phonies. 

Hawthorne, referring to the music of a 
cathedral organ in the distance, says : " It 
thrills through my heart with a pleasure both 
of the sense and spirit. Heaven be praised, 
though I know nothing of music as a science, 
the most elaborate harmonies, if they please 
me, please as simply as a nurse's lullaby ! '' 

The miagic power of music is seen in its 
effects upon infancy, as well as matured life. 
'' Mozart, when only three years old, would 
strike thirds on the clavichord, and incline 
his little face smilingly to the harmony of 
the vibrations." No other art probably 
has ever had such early proficients and 
prodigies. 

When Paganini — whose great feat was to 
play on one string only — once came before 



104 Stray Leaves of Liter attire. 

an auditory with his music, he found that his 
vioHn had been removed, and a coarser in- 
strument substituted for it. Discovering the 
trick, he said to the audience, " Now I will 
show you that the music is not in my violin^ 
but in me." Music is a test of the culture of 
an age, and is ubiquitous, by its nature, as 
poetry ; for its vernacular tongue is common 
to mankind. Music in its nature is social : it 
can enter every home, ahke of the poor and ' 
the rich. Music is one of the glories of the 
eighteenth century : *^ the whole gamut of 
music (except the plain-song, part-song, 
dance, and mass) is the creation of the- 
eighteenth century." 

Music is the language, not of thought, but 
of the affections. Does not maternal ten- 
derness vibrate with its melodies, and the 
interchange of loving regard find its truest 
expression in song ? Does not martial music, 
also, fire the heart of the patriot to the fray ; 
and the solemn strains of devotion lift the 
soul to ecstasy and the upper sphere ? The 
domestic circle is no less witness to its soften- 
ing and inspiring influences, — its joy-awaken- 
ing power and sympathetic charm. 



The Mystery of Music. 105 

"The heart is stirred by each glad bird, 
Whose notes are heard in summer bowers ; 
And song gives birth to friendly mirth 
Around the hearth in wintry hours. 
Man first learned song in paradise, 
From the bright angels o'er him singing; 
And in our home above the skies 
Glad anthems are forever ringing. 
Then should we sing while yet we may, — 
Like him God loved, the sweet-toned Psalmist, 
Who found in harp and holy lay 
The charm that keeps the spirit calmest." * 

What an indispensable auxiliary to our 
social enjoyment is music ! Not only is it 
efficacious to charm away physical sickness 
and moody melancholy, but it also is the 
accompaniment of the birth, the banquet, and 
the burial. Music is said to bear the same 
relation to song that poetry does to language : 
it is the harmonizer of society, and one of 
the essentials of life. 

" Music ! whate'er it be, whose subtle power 
Steals to the soul, as dew into the flower, — 
A circling gush of thin and tremulous air, 
Like quick expanding wave-struck waters bear; 
Dying, when past, as some frail spoken spell, 
To rove, a ghost, in memory's shadowy cell ; 

I G. W. Bethune. 



io6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

A sky-born messenger on silvery wing, 
Floating or sweeping ; a triumphant thing ! 
Whate'er it be, 'twas given when time began, 
To soothe creation's heart, and ravish man; 
A world-embracing language all might know, 
To prompt joy's smile, or chase the tear of woe." 

It has been well said, that "we may sit 
unmoved during the recital of the finest 
verses ; but the moment the harper's fingers 
sweep the strings, the melody rouses us to a 
fine fanaticism. The song was body before : 
it is now soul ; its harmonies are complete ; 
and to every march of the melody the heart- 
strings throb responsive. Nature is double 
all through, — body and soul, matter and 
spirit, — as if the universe were a repeated 
marriage of the two elements. To the fer- 
tility of the fields, is added beauty of tint, 
form, and color. The brown soil has a soul, 
and that soul is the flower which would exist 
in vain were there no other souls to make 
common cause with its life and history. To 
man — the prose of the world — is added 
women, its poetry. 

Nature pushes up toward the region of 
poetry in sound as she does in color. As she 



The Mystery of Music. 107 

weaves rainbows from the fragments of a 
falling cloud, so she struggles to weave music 
from every voice of animate and inanimate 
things."^ Plato said the soul of man was 
itself a harmony, and had its nearest sym- 
pathies in music. 

I Hibberd. 




THE SURVIVAL OF BOOKS. 

I HE survival of the fittest, as a gen- 
eral rule, applies as directly to books 
as to any thing in nature. The 
products of the mind, characterized as they 
are by an almost unlimited variety as to 
worth and power, are necessarily governed 
by that law as to their durability ; hence we 
find that scarcely any, comparatively, of the 
multitude of books pubHshed ever attain to 
much celebrity, or even outlive a decade of 
years, while still fewer are found to possess 
the elements of an enduring fame. Instances 
in confirmation of this are so numerous and 
patent that it seems almost superfluous to cite 
any illustrations of the fact. Yet, as every 
thing connected with the history of literature 
is so intimiately aUied with our social and 
intellectual life as to be always interesting, a 
few of the most noteworthy examples will be 
presented. 

io8 



The Survival of Books. 109 

Homer and Virgil, as representatives of 
the culture and poetic inspiration of their 
respective eras, — the one in Greek and the 
other in Latin hterature, — have not only 
shed lustre upon their own, but upon all the 
subsequent ages, while they seem destined to 
survive through all time, in the grand galaxy 
of the classic writers. 

In an able paper speaking of classic litera- 
ture, President Seelyeasks, " Can there be such 
a thing as literary immortality? A consid- 
erable number of writers actually have lived 
in memory two thousand years ; and these 
writers, though in general pure in style, 
are not in all cases of quite transcendent 
merit. I mean, of course, the Greek and 
Latin classics. Livy has lived two thousand 
years, and why should not Macaulay expect 
to do so ? Southey might fancy himself not 
inferior to Statius or Valerius Flaccus. Now, 
these ancient classics are kept, by our system 
of education, always before our minds. The 
importance that is still assigned to them, the 
prodigious amount of industry that is still 
bestowed upon them, after two thousand 
years, cannot escape us, and cannot fliil to 



no stray Leaves of Literature. 

give rise to a theory, more or less unconscious 
and vague, of the fates that attend books, 
and of the immortality that awaits some 
books. . . . Now, no similar prospect lies 
before the writers of the modern world. We 
may expect that literature will have a long, 
continuous life, during which it will never 
sink below a certain level, will not be barbar- 
ized or disabled by the want of a serviceable 
language, and in which the writings of each 
period will be preserved securely, since libra- 
ries will not be burned by Norsemen or 
Arabs. Now, these are wholly different con- 
ditions from those which have conferred im- 
mortahty upon the ancients. . . . Each 
generation has now its own writers, and what 
a multitude of writers ! Against such an over- 
whelming competition of new books, it is dif- 
ficult to imagine how old books can bear up. 
At least, in no former age have candidates for 
literary immortality been situated so disad- 
vantageously." 

It may be worth while to refer to the 
strange and sometimes erratic criticisms 
which, of course, had a controlhng influence 
on the fate of the publications of the time. 



The Survival of Books. 1 1 1 

By reference to the old critical journals, we 
find scathingly condemned works that yet 
are regarded as worthy of a place in the libra- 
ry, and vice veisa, " Denham's ' Cooper's 
Hill ' was described as a poem, which, for the 
majesty of the style, is, and ever will be, the 
exact standard of good writing. * Pamela,' 
says a critic, next to the Bible, ought to be 
preserved. Home, because he wrote ^Doug- 
las,' was dubbed 'the Scottish Shakspeare ; ' 
and the critics of the time seem to have 
considered him even superior to the great 
bard. How many writers included in 
Johnson's ' Lives of the Poets ' do we read 
to-day? On the other hand, taking a few 
instances at random, the critics could see 
no genius in Lytton, Tennyson's first volume 
of poems was ridiculed by one of the re- 
views, and Lord Beaconsfield's early attempts 
were regarded as 'indications of Hterary 
lunacy.' The fate of Keats is almost too 
hackneyed to quote : referring to him, Byron 
wrote : — 

* 'Tis strange the mind, that fiery particle, 
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.* 



1 1 2 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Byron's mind was evidently not ^ snuffed 
out ' by the slashing review his first volume 
of poems received." ^ 

What universal favorites are still Defoe's 
" Robinson Crusoe," Goldsmith's " Vicar of 
Wakefield," and Fielding's, Swift's, Richard- 
son's, Smollett's, and Charles Lamb's works, 
with many others. Yet Johnson could see no 
genius in Fielding. Tastes differ with the 
objects of taste, with respect to books as to 
works of art and things in general. Dr. John- 
son's pompous verbosity was, however, a 
standing joke among some of his contempo- 
raries ; and although Bos well regarded his 
opinions as of the highest authority, he has 
not been, in every instance, sustained or 
regarded as unimpeachable. 

Mrs. Hannah More's *Xoelebs in Search of 
a Wife," a semi-rehgious novel, was, perhaps, 
the most popular book of its time ; about 
thirty thousand copies having been sold in 
England, and a similar number in America. 
It was translated into the principal languages 
of the continent of Europe, and the East. 
Some of her other productions were very 

' All the Year Round. 



The Survival of Books. 113 

successful ; and she not only acquired by her 
writings a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, 
but the most distinguished honors were paid 
to her by the British Court and nobility. Yet 
the literature, judged by the standard of 
modern criticism, is far from evincing any 
remarkable power : it seems to have gained 
favor by its moral teaching. 

Latter-day critics find it difficult to account 
for the immense success of " Ye Schyppe of 
Fooles," the great work of Sebastian Brant, 
at the time of its publication, in 1497, at 
Basile. Editions followed each other in rapid 
succession, although, on account of its wood- 
cuts, it could not have been a very cheap 
book. This work, quaint and curious to the 
literary antiquary, is not now thought of; and 
yet it was a foremost satirical work in its day. 
It is known as the first printed book that 
treated of contemporary events and persons. 
Sir Philip Sidney's '' Arcadia " was universally 
read and eulogized at the time of its publica- 
tion, as giving an impulse to the taste for 
romantic literature. "Don Quixote" was a 
similar instance of spontaneous success at the 
time of its appearance, and it may be said to 



1 14 stray Leaves of Literature. 

retain its hold upon the popular favor to this 
day; not so, however, with the "Arcadia." 

Of Burke's " Reflections on the French 
Revolution," seven thousand copies were sold 
within six days of its publication ; and within 
a few years more than thirty thousand copies 
were demanded. Dryden's '^Absalom and 
Achitophel " passed through five editions in 
a year. " The effect it produced was unpre- 
cedented, though it failed of its immediate 
object, — that of prejudicing the public mind 
against Shaftesbury, then awaiting in the 
Tower the presentation of the bill of indict- 
ment against him." Gibbon's famous history 
of the " Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire " was another instance of literary triumph. 
On the other hand, " Paul and Virginia," by 
St. Pierre, although after a time it was received 
with popular favor, at first was snubbed and 
tabooed by society-folk. Scott's novels and 
romances were great favorites on their first 
appearance, and they are yet with persons of 
cultured taste. " Of all modern works, per- 
haps Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was 
the most notable instance of success, and 
the most marvellous literary phenomenon the 



The Survival of Books. 115 

world had witnessed. The London pubhsh- 
ers, it is said, furnished to one house ten 
thousand copies a day for about four weeks, 
and had to employ a thousand persons in 
preparing copies for the general demand. 
It was computed that more than one milhon 
of copies were sold in England alone. It 
has been translated into most of the leading 
languages of Europe, and dramatized in 
numerous towns of the Old and New World. 
Of the success in America of this remarkable 
work, it may suffice to state that a similar 
amount of copies is believed to have been in 
circulation." ^ Of course this work owes 
much of its wonderful success to its opportune 
appearance, — the great agitation then pre- 
vailing in both nations on the question of the 
abolition of slavery. Without alluding briefly 
to the " Pilgrim's Progress " of John Bunyan, 
this rapid and almost random sketch of books 
that have, and have not, achieved a literary 
triumph, would be incomplete. Like Shak- 
speare's, the name of Bunyan is familiar as 
an household word ; both hold us spell-bound 
by the force of their genius. Yet, in each 

^ F. Jacox. 



ii6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

instance, their advent upon the world of let- 
ters was without any special notice or regard, 
— Shakspeare's collective dramas having been 
first published in 1623, seven years after the 
death of the author ; and in the case of Bun- 
yan, when he was only just liberated from his 
cruel and unjust incarceration. But, like the 
rising of the dawn, the hght of these masters 
of drama and allegory has been steadily in- 
creasing to the full- orbed brightness of our 
day. 

As a representative work of its order, 
Walton's '^Complete Angler," at its first 
appearance, did not excite any particular 
notice. The first edition was issued in 1653, 
at one shilling and sixpence sterling, a copy 
of which, however, was sold at auction in 
1882 for thirty guineas. Editions almost 
innumerable have since been pubhshed ; and, 
at the present time, the work may be had for 
ten cents in miniature form, or in the most 
elaborately and elegantly illustrated style for 
about six guineas. 

The last instance claiming notice is that of 
^^ De Imitatione Christi," of Thomas a 
Kempis. Of this world-renowned work, we 



The Survival of Books. 117 

quote the following particulars from "The 
London Athenaeum : " — 

" In collecting the ' De Imitatione Christi/ 
Edmund Waterton had, up to the time of 
his death, succeeded in bringing together 
between eleven hundred and twelve hundred 
different editions in various languages ; and 
for some years before his death he had 
been engaged on writing a history of the 
book." 

This v/ork has been many times translated 
into the civilized languages of Europe, in- 
cluding the Greek and Hebrew. Over sixty 
versions have appeared in French ; and to 
compute the whole number of the several 
editions that have been pubHshed, has baffled 
the most careful attempts at calculation. 
Next to the Bible, — which has been translated 
into two hundred and sixty-seven languages 
and dialects, and of which about two hun- 
dred millions of copies, or portions of the 
Scriptures, have been published, — this pro- 
duction of the monk Thomas, who was bom 
at Kempen on the Rhine in 1379, takes 
rank. 

The cynic or critic may claim that most 



1 1 8 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

writers are apt to place too high an estimate 
upon their own literary productions ; yet it 
may be questioned whether this weakness is 
exclusively applicable to the literary profes- 
sion. It has been well said that a just esti- 
mate of one's self is necessary for maintaining 
a proper self-respect ; and every one is sup- 
posed to be conscious of his own power and 
qualifications. A longing for literary immor- 
tahty has been satirically styled "drawing in 
imagination upon the future for that homage 
which the present refuses to pay, — at best, 
a protracted oblivion." Some vainglorious 
poet is reported to have boasted that his 
poems would be read when Dryden and 
Pope were forgotten ; " but not till then," 
was the rejoinder. 

A refined and virtuous ambition is perhaps, 
of all human passions, the most seductive 
and imposing ; nor is it ever to be depre- 
cated. Cowley wrote, " I love and com- 
mend a true, good fame because it is the 
shadow of virtue ; not that it doth any good 
to the body which it accompanies, but it 
is an efficacious shadow, and, Hke that of St. 
Peter, cures the diseases of others." This 



The Survival of Books. 119 

love of human applause also incites to noble 
and heroic deeds. 

"The love of praise, hovve'er concealed by art, 
Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart." 

Writing to Swift and Pope as poets, Boling- 
broke says, ^' You teach our self-love to antici- 
pate the applause which we suppose will be 
paid by posterity to our names, and with the 
idle notions of immortality you turn other 
heads besides your own." Chauteaubriand 
once asked his friend if he knew why an- 
tiquity has left us in literature nothing but 
masterpieces, or at least very remarkable 
productions, nor paused for a reply, but gave 
as the reason, that Time, the best of critics, 
has dealt out justice to mediocrities by put- 
ting them out of sight, out of mind. Time 
is the crucible which tests the true value of 
every literary production. Despite the stern 
decisions of fate, no one seems to be proof 
against the alluring fascinations of fame. 
Comparatively few are insensible to the charm 
of human applause : it is right that it should 
be so ; since it is not only an incentive to 
virtue, but to its twin- sister industry. 



I20 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

" The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure ; 
The modest shun it, but to make it sure/* 

The quintessence of fame, it has been sug- 
gested, is the loving admiration of one's own 
family circle, since it is an accepted axiom, 
that "a prophet is not without honor save 
among his own kindred ; " yet in the popular 
acceptation of fame, contemporary or post- 
humous, such a limitation is far too con- 
tracted for the vaulting ambition of mankind. 

*' Fame's loud clarion, that most bewitches men, — 
O popular applause ! what heart of man 
Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms ? " 




LIFE'S LITTLE DAY. 

HE advent of the new year is usually 
ushered in with winter's icy breath, 
its snow-clad landscapes and its 
clouded skies ; but it nevertheless is the har- 
binger and prophecy of the glorious spring 
with its sunny skies, its fragrant breath of 
buds and blossoms, and its joyous melodies 
of the feathered minstrels. 

*^The night is mother of the day, the 
winter of the spring;" and we soon forget 
the frigidity of the one season, in the genial 
atmosphere of the other. Both are neces- 
sary, like the alternations of day and night, 
in the economy of nature ; " for seed-time 
and harvest, summer and winter," are among 
the ordinances of the beneficent Creator. 
By the same law is our own life determined. 
Life's litde day has not only its alternations 
of bright and darkened hours, but its budding 
infancy and buoyant youth, its maturity and 



122 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

mellow autumn- time. What a fascination 
there is in infancy and childhood ! 

** Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing boy ; 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows. 

He sees it in his joy. 
The youth, who daily farther from the east 
Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended. 
At length the man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day." * 

Childhood is the poetic period of our 
human life : like the fresh buds and flowers 
of spring, the dear Httle children are the blos- 
soms of home-hfe. The presence of children 
not only softens, charms, and refines our 
hearts, but there is about them a spell that 
holds us captive to their artless and winning 
ways. They brighten home, deepen its 
affection, and kindle afresh the courtesies and 
gentle charities of life. What a barren waste 
would life become without the presence of 
the little charmers ! 

^ Wordsworth. 



Life's Little Day. 123 

It is somewhere said, that children are sent 
to us for more purposes than to make up the 
home circle : they prevent us from growing 
prematurely old, and keep alive in our hearts 
the graces of love and affection. Be afraid 
of a person whom children shrink from. 
Cherish and make much of Httle children ; 
remember a nation's hope was once found 
in a basket of bulrushes ! Never let it be 
forgotten that '' He who came from heaven 
has put the seal of his perpetual benediction 
upon childhood. '^ The sunny smile and the 
artless lispings of infancy are indeed a benison 
from heaven ; for the eye has caught its bril- 
liant hue, and the voice its glad harmony. So 
much for childhood's happy hour. What shall 
we say of boyhood? Perhaps it will suffice to 
cite Saxe's opinion on the subject, which is as 
follows : — 

" The proper study of mankind is man ; 

The most perplexing one, no doubt, is woman; 
The subtlest study the mind can scan, 

Of all deep problems, heavenly or human. 
But of all studies in the round of learning. 

From nature's marvels down to human toys, 
To minds well fitted for acute discerning, 

The very queerest one is that of boys 1 



124 stray Leaves of Literature. 

" If to ask questions that would puzzle Plato, 
And all the schoolmen of the middle age; 
If to make precepts worthy of old Cato, 
Be deemed philosophy, — your boy's a sage ! 

" If a strong will and most courageous bearing. 

If to be cruel as the Roman Nero, 
If all that's chivalrous, and all that's daring, 

Can make a hero, — then the boy's a hero. 
But changing soon with his increasing stature. 

The boy is lost in 'manhood's riper age ; 
And with him goes his former boyhood nature, 

No longer is he hero now, nor sage ! " 

Yet are they not happy, those days of Ufe's 
young dawn, — free from care, and buoyant 
with hope. 

Hope is to the boy what memory is to the 
man. It has been said, that, at twenty years 
of age, the will reigns ; at thirty, the wit ; and 
afterwards, the judgment. And Shakspeare 
adds this wise suggestion, — 

" O gentlemen, the time of life is short ! 
To spend that shortness basely, were too long." 

Youth is usually impatient to reach man- 
hood, and adults are as anxious to retain their 
youth ; but the timepiece of old Chronos 



Life's Little Day. 125 

never stops. Cicero was for a youth that 
had something of the old in him, and for an 
elderly person with something of the youth in 
him. When the noon of hfe's day has passed, 
and the shadowy tints of eventide gather 
around us, we naturally seek retirement and 
repose. If, haply, the antecedent hours of 
active service have been well spent, and the 
heart has escaped uninjured through the 
dangers of a seductive world, it may then 
prove the most happy period of existence, — 
like the viol which yields a melody sweet 
in proportion to its age. A well-spent life 
insures a calm and serene old age. 

The phrase "battle of life" is usually sup- 
posed to apply to the struggle which is all the 
time going on throughout the civilized world 
for the possession of its honors, or its wealth, 
as well as the stern conflict which unfortu- 
nately prevails, even with many, for the ne- 
cessities of existence. There is, however, 
another fight being constantly waged, between 
the moral forces of right and wrong, of which 
every reflective mind is but too painfully con- 
scious ; and no less true is it, that there is 
a physical welfare carried on between life and 



126 stray Leaves of Literature. 

death in our bodies. It has been said, that, 
no sooner do we begin to live, than we tend 
to death. If we ask the scientist to define 
for us that mystic thing we call life, his reply 
is, " the sum of all the forces that resist death." 
So it seems that life and death are not only 
nearly alHed, but in constant antagonism. 

Thomas Fuller says, " He lives long, that 
lives well ; and time mis-spent is not lived, 
but lost." Carlyle, in his usual grave and 
nervous manner, writes : " Think of living ! 
thy life, wert thou the pitifullest of all the 
sons of earth, is no idle dream, but a 
solemn reality. It is thy own ; it is all thou 
hast to front eternity with." 

"Is life worth the living?" has been un- 
graciously asked ; and the response has been 
facetiously given, "That depends upon the 
livery But the question is a momentous one, 
and demands a serious answer. 

" Life itself, indeed, is an enigma which 
has not been unravelled, — a problem not 
yet solved. It is not our personal property ; 
we have no title to it in fee simple, but hold 
it only in usufruct. It is entailed strictly. 
We cannot alienate it, nor cut off the entail. 



Lifes Little Day. 127 

Its durability is a question that is, to a great 
extent, determined or modified by personal 
peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, habit, custom, man- 
ners, mode of living, and occupation. It is 
also affected by cHmate, and the law of 
heredity. There can be little doubt, how- 
ever, that a healthful soul enshrined in a 
healthy body has much to do with a happy 
and protracted existence." ' The habit of 
looking habitually on the sunny side of things 
is wortii more than a thousand pounds a year 
to a person of a misanthropic temperament. 
It has been said that there are far more who 
die of selfishness and idleness, than over- 
work. It is indolence which exhausts, by 
allowing the entrance of fretful thoughts into 
the mind ; not action, in which there is 
health and pleasure. *^We live in deeds," 
said Baile}^, " not years ; in thoughts, not 
breaths ; in feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
He most lives, who thinks most, feels the 
noblest, acts the best." 

Character is the governing element in life, 
and is above genius. It has been often 
affirmed that the two govern the world ; but 

* Dickson. 



128 stray Leaves of Literature. 

one commands our admiration, while the 
other secures our esteem and respect. There 
are many persons of whom it may be said 
that they have no possession in the world but 
their character, and yet they stand as firmly 
upon it as any crowned king. 

A distinguished writer/ in two elaborate 
papers on " The Meaning and Government of 
Life," thus sums up the subject : *'The ideals 
of modern Liberalism, ' freedom ' (especially 
^ freedom of conscience ') a political ' social 
contract,' as also ' equality ' and ' fraternity,' 
all find their true realization in the recogni- 
tion of ' duty ' as the aim of life, and may be 
adopted without scruple by patriotic conserva- 
tism. In the idea of ^ duty ' is found their 
true realization ; while the delusions which 
have seduced men to the worship of false 
idols in their place, stand revealed through 
such conception as if touched by the spear 
of Ithuriel. The idols which have been set 
up for the true God have been ' freedom for 
the passions,' the ^envious levelling of superi- 
ority,' the ^abolition of reverence,' — the 
abolition of reverence for man's essence (his 

^ St. George Mivart. 



Lifes Little Day. 129 

moral responsibility), the abolition of rever- 
ence for the world, and the abolition of 
reverence for God. These idols overthrown, 
in their place stand disclosed the true objects 
of esteem. These are the various forms of 
activity in pursuit of physical, emotional, 
intellectual, and above all moral good, which 
arise from the conscientious pursuit in things 
great and small, alike by individuals and by 
states, of duty as the one aim of life. It is 
this conception which intensifies, beautifies, 
and transfigures human life ; and it is this 
which alone gives to it dignity and signifi- 
cance." 

Whittier poetically says, " A loving heart 
carries with it, under every parallel of latitude, 
the warmth and light of the tropics. It 
plants its Eden in the wilderness and solitary 
place, and sows with flowers the gray desola- 
tion of rock and mosses." 

What, indeed, is Hfe worth unless it has 
some love and friendship to feed upon ? 

" Kind hearts are more than coronets." 

It is a melancholy thought that will some- 
times confront us, — that of our personal 



130 stray Leaves of Literature. 

isolation and individuality. We boast of our 
'^ kith and kin/' and our intimate friend- 
ships ; yet we are compelled to a great 
extent to make the journey of life alone. 
How diverse are the routes we have to 
take ! There are some who are girt, shod, 
well draped, and protected, who walk on 
velvet lawns and smooth terraces ; but the 
many have to encounter fierce tempests and 
bhnding wind-storms, or walk over rugged 
paths, but poorly clothed and with unsan- 
dalled feet. 

We are not accustomed to think of death as 
being as naturally a condition of our existence 
as life itself, yet such it is. But, to the Chris- 
tian, what we call death is the gate of Hfe ; 
or, as Longfellow beautifully puts it, — 

" There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death." 

Said Bishop Hall, "Every day is a little 
life, and our whole life is but a day repeated ; 
whence it is said that old Jacob numbers his 
life by days, and Moses desires to be taught 



Life's Little Day. 131 

this point of holy arithmetic, to number not 
his years, but his days.'* 

" And such is human life, at best, — 
A mother's, a lover's, the green earth's breast ; 
A wreath that is formed of fiowrets three — 
Primrose, and myrtle, and rosemary; 
A hopeful, a joyful, a sorrowful stave ; 
A launch, a voyage, a whelming wave ; 
The cradle, the bridal, and the grave ! " 

Life's great lesson is to teach us hfe's great 
end ; and it is not to be measured merely by 
its duration, but by its harvest of thoughts 
and deeds. 

"'Tis not the number of the lines on life's fast- 
filling page, 
* Tis not the pulse's added throbs which constitute 
their age. 

Seize, then, the minutes as they pass, — the woof 
of life is thought 1 

Warm up the colors, let them glow, by fire or 
fancy fraught. 

Live to some purpose; make thy life a gift of use 
to thee, — 

A joy, a good, a golden hope, a heavenly argosy I " 




OUR SOCIAL SALUTATIONS. 

I HE social principle of our humanity 
is strong and ineradicable ; and it is 
well that it is so, since it is charged 
with our highest earthly interests. The social 
instinct is also irresistible, while growing out 
of it are the various relationships and virtues 
that adorn and beautify domestic life. This 
law of sociahty expresses itself in outward 
forms of action and modes of speech. In 
noticing briefly these conventional courtesies, 
it is proposed to group together some of 
the various utterances which accompany our 
greetings and our partings. These salutations 
of friendship have been styled " the rude 
poetry of life, refined and beautified in song.'* 

" There's a charm that seems to follow every greet- 
ing word we say. 
Our * good-nights ' and our * good-mornings ' chase 
unkindly thoughts away. 
132 



Our Social Salutations. 133 

They give rest to weary watchers, to the weak 
impart new power ; ■ 

While the good within the greeting scatters sun- 
shine on each hour." 

Said Emerson, " The whole of heraldry and 
chivalry is in courtesy ; " and gentleness, 
cheerfulness, and urbanity form its triple 
graces. 

" Hail, ye small, sweet courtesies of hfe 1 
for smooth do ye make the road of it ; and 
ye open the door and let the stranger in." 

In a utilitarian sense it is economic and 
profitable, since poHteness costs little and 
yields bountifully. Tennyson tells us the 
same truth. He says, " Gentle words are 
always gain." If all could only act out that 
line, the world at large would be all the 
better for it. 

** Study with care politeness, that will teach 
The modish forms of gesture and of speech." 

The courtesies which belong to civilized 
society are no less obligatory in domestic 
life ; this is an obligation, however, some- 
times disregarded or intermitted. Morning 
greetings are benedictions. 



134 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

Politeness is itself always the same ; but 
the rules of etiquette, which are merely the 
forms in which it finds expression, vary with 
time and place. A sincere regard for the 
rights of others, in the smallest matters as 
well as the largest; genuine kindness of 
heart, good taste, and self-command (which 
are the foundations of good manners) , — are 
never out of fashion. A person who pos- 
sesses these can hardly be discourteous or 
rude. Some gentle natures seem to be en- 
dowed with the instinct of courtesy, and have 
no need to cultivate the graces and amenities 
of pohte life ; and with them there is little 
fear of their transgressing conventional usages. 
This class is not restricted to the privileged 
aristocracy, but is found no less among the 
average ranks of society ; for wealth and cul- 
ture are not always conjoined, — instances of 
the opposite not being unknown. Money 
may be supposed, like charity, " to cover a 
multitude of sins ; " but it will not cover nor 
conceal a vulgar nature. 



*' You may daub and bedizen the man, if you will, 
But the stamp of the vulgar remains on him still." 



Our Social Salutations. 135 

Sydney Smith sagaciously remarks, that 
" Hfe is too short to get over a bad manner ; 
besides, manners are the shadows of virtue.'* 
Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and 
artificial pohteness : the first consists in a 
voluntary a])negation of self, and the other is 
a compulsory consideration of others. Good 
nature and good sense are the best guaranty 
for good manners. But some persons are 
found too talkative and intrusive, while others 
are just as taciturn and unsocial. The author 
above named has something further to say on 
this subject, which is worth repeating : " On 
one occasion a gentleman was my compan- 
ion," he says, "in a stage-coach. We had 
been conversing on general subjects for some 
time ; but, w^hen we came near to York, he 
suddenly looked out of the window, and ex- 
claimed, ^ There is a very clever man, they 
say, but a very odd fellow, fives near here, — 
Sydney Smith, I believe.' — ^ He may be a 
very odd fellow,' I replied, taking off my hat 
to him, and laughing, ' and I dare say he is ; 
but, odd as he is, he is here, and very much 
at your service, sir.' Poor man, I thought he 
would have sunk into his boots, he was so 
mortified at his dilemma ! " 



136 stray Leaves of Literature. 

It is related of Pope Clement XIV., that, 
when he ascended the papal chair, the am- 
bassadors of the several states represented at 
his court waited on him with their congratu- 
lations. When they were introduced and 
bowed their heads, the pontiff returned the 
courtesy. It was suggested by a cardinal to 
his Holiness that it was not right for him to 
return the salute. " Oh, I beg your pardon ! '^ 
was the sarcastic response : " I have not been 
Pope long enough to forget good manners." 

Were we to seek for the origiii of salutations 
and greetings, we should have to go back to 
primitive times. The frequent allusions in ■ 
the Sacred Scriptures to the customary salu- 
tations of the Jews invest the subject with a 
higher degree of interest than it might other- 
wise possess. The earliest forms of expres- 
sion were such as '^ God be gracious unto 
thee." The ordinary mode of address current 
in the East resembles the Hebrew " Peace 
be on you." The Orientals, indeed, are 
famed for the elaborate formality of their 
greetings, which occupy a very considerable 
time ; the gestures and inflections used in 
salutations vary with the dignity and station 
of the person addressed. 



Our Social Salutations, 137 

The ecclesiastical usage of the Romish 
Church is '' Pax vobiscum, '^ with the re- 
sponse '' Et ctun Spiritu r^ The French- 
man greets you Hterally with " How do you 
carry yourself ? " and at parting with the 
phrase, '•' Till we meet." The Irishman 
hails, " The top of the morning to you ; " 
the German, "How goes it?" the Hol- 
lander, "How do you go?" the Swede, 
" How do you think? " 

Life itself, indeed, is largely made up of 
greetings and partings ; and in our day 
of incessant locomotion and intercommuni- 
cation, it is especially true. Our meetings 
are usually accompanied with some such ver- 
bal greetings as " How are you ? " "I am glad 
to meet you ; " and sometimes we supple- 
ment them with an allusion to the state of 
the weather, or something equally common- 
place. Our partings are generally summed 
up in the familiar phrase " Good-by." With 
the gentler sex, however, friendly partings 
are more prolonged. With them it does not 
usually suffice to say " Good-by " or " Au 
revoir;^^ but they reserve to the extreme 
moment many little items of gossip, with 



138 stray Leaves of Literature. 

many requests of future interchanging of 
visits, etc. Of all national forms of saluta- 
tion, doubtless, that most in vogue in all 
English-speaking communities is, " How do 
you do?" It is the best, because the most 
characteristic in import ; being full of action, 
never inopportune, because always a suitable 
inquiry, and one of friendly soHcitude as to 
health and happiness. The parting phrase 
^'Good-by" (i.e. ''God be with you"), like 
"Farewell" (from the Saxon), is equivalent 
to the Latin vale and valete (" May you be in 
health"). 

" One day ' Good-by ' met * How-d'ye-do,' too close 
to shun saluting ; 

But soon the rival sisters flew from kissing to dis- 
puting. 

*' Aw^ay," says How-d'ye-do, **your mien appalls 
my cheerful nature ; 

No name so sad as yours is seen in sorrow's nomen- 
clature." 

Good-by replied, " Your statement's true, and w^ell 
your cause you've pleaded ; 

But, pray, who'd think of How-d'ye-do^ unless Good- 
by preceded ? 

From love and friendship's kindred source, we both 
derive existence ; 

And they w^ould both lose half their force without 
our joint assistance." ' 

I W. R. Spencer. 



Our Social Salutations. 139 

There is yet another form or mode of 
friendly greeting, known, indeed, to all climes 
and times, and especially as an aesthetic 
pastime with the gentler sex. It is, however, 
so spirituelle and intangible in itself, that we 
shall have to refer the reader for its definition 
to the Scottish bard, who thus sings about its 
magic power, — 

" Speaking silence, dumb confession, passion's birth, 

and infants' play, 
Dove-like fondness, chaste concession, glowing 

dawn of brighter day. 
Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action, when lingering 

lips no more may join, — 
What words can ever speak affection so thrilling 

and sincere as thine ? " 

Next of kin to the above is the custom of 
kissing the hand, which also may be said to 
be a sort of universal language intelligible 
without an interpreter, and which miglit have 
preceded writing and even speech itself. 
Solomon refers to this practice of his court- 
iers ; and in Homer we read of Priam kissing 
the hands, and embracing the knees, of 
Achilles, while he supplicates for the body 
of Hector. Thus whether the custom of 



140 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

salutation is practised by kissing the hands 
of others from respect, or in bringing one's 
own to the mouth, it is, perhaps, of all cus- 
toms, the most universal. 

What do we not owe to the cunning dexter 
hand ? Does it not wield alike the sword and 
the pen, the chisel and the pencil, the organ 
and the viohn, the microscope and telescope ? 
And is it not the almost universal factor in 
the every-day economy of our human life? 
With the hand we demand, entreat, promise, 
dismiss, refuse, instruct, and otherwise enact 
a thousand purposes of the mind. Ought we 
not, therefore, to prize very highly this indis- 
pensable member? 

" The human hand, interpreter of will, 
Servant so great, yet so obedient still." 

Rightly has it been styled " the instrument 
of instruments, the chamberlain of Nature, 
the minister of wrath, and the accepted sym- 
bol of courtesy and friendship." 

There are many modes in which character 
reveals itself, — by the face and the voice, by 
laughter, by gait, and by the grasp of the hand. 
But, perhaps, the latter is not the least legible ; 



Our Social Salutations. 141 

for much of the disposition and character 
may be discovered by the manner in which 
the act is performed, whether in a cold, phleg- 
matic way, or with the glow and warmth of 
feeling, indicative of true friendship, whether 
sinister or sincere. Sometimes the act is un- 
accompanied by words ; and even then we are 
wilhng to accept the act for the word of fealty 
or friendship, Hke the delicate language of 
Flora, or the silent eloquence of the eye. 
Such silent appeals have an eloquence of 
their own, and who has not felt their 
potency? 

In Xenophon's " Expedition of Cyrus " 
(where he gives an account of the treachery 
of Orontes, a Persian officer in Cyrus's army), 
Cyrus tells the Greeks that '^ he had pardoned 
Orontes for previous acts of treachery, and 
had given and received from him the right 
hand of friendship." We also find reference 
to the custom, in Virgil's " ^neid," the first 
book, where the right hand is extended in 
the greeting of friends. In forming and 
completing contracts, the parties thereto 
sealed the agreement by joining their 
hands. 



142 stray Leaves of Literature. 

In the Orient, the customary mode of 
salutation or greeting is by the salaam, or 
touching one's self with the fingers on the 
breast; while in the Occident, among the 
Western nations, and especially the Latin race, 
the grasping and shaking of the hand pre- 
vailed. In spite of the mutations of time, 
this custom of hand-shaking has come down, 
to us of the nineteenth century even, indeed, 
from patriarchal times, unimpaired either in 
vigor or value. 

" There is nothing more characteristic," 
said Sydney Smith, ^^ than shakes of the hand. 
There is the high official : the body erect, and 
a rapid, short shake, near the chin. There is 
the mortmain : the fiat hand introduced into 
your palm, and hardly conscious of its con- 
tiguity. The digital : one finger held out, — 
much used by the high clergy. There is the 
shakus rusticus, when your hand is seized by 
an iron grasp betokening rude health, warm 
heart, and distance from the metropolis, but 
producing a strong sense of relief on your 
part when you find your fingers unbroken. 
Then next to this is the retentive shake, — one 
which, beginning with vigor, pauses, as it were, 



Our Social Salutations. 143 

to take breath ; and without rehnquishing its 
prey, and before you are aware, begins again, 
till you feel anxious as to the result, and have 
no shake left in you.'' This classification may 
be deemed exhaustive and complete ; but the 
subject is, we think, susceptible of yet further 
analysis. Every person, according to his 
nature or proclivity, shakes the hand of his 
friend. The nicest refinements and idiosyn- 
crasies of character may not, perhaps, be 
discoverable ; but the more salient points 
of temperament and individuality may be 
discovered by the act. 

" For the hand, of the heart is the index declaring, 
If well, or if ill, how its master will stand: 
I heed not the tongue, of its friendship the swear- 
ing* 
But judge of a friend by the shake of his hand." 

Yet it must be admitted there are some 
hand-shakes of an eccentric order, whose 
manual grip you hardly know how to inter- 
pret. Some, for example, will seize your hand 
as they would a pump-handle, and jerk your 
hand to the risk of dislocation. Others, again, 
have a habit of keeping hold of your hand, 



144 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

and swing it backward and forward like a 
pendulum. A story is told of two persons 
having met after long absence ; one having 
been addicted to practise the pump-handle 
shake, and the other the pendulum. They 
joined hands, and attempted to put them in 
motion : they were neither of them feeble 
men, and one endeavored to pump and the 
other to paddle. Their faces became excited, 
and they were at length reduced to a stand- 
still condition, and had to relinquish their 
hold of each other ; and thus terminated their 
cross purposes, as to their greeting. There 
are also the aesthetic shakers, whose respect 
for the restraints of etiquette and the decrees 
of fashion so effectually stifle all generous 
emotion, that you would willingly dispense 
with their affectation and artificial courtesy. 
Some of the butterfly beauties of the beau 
monde will also offer counterfeit courtesy by 
extending one or two of their delicate digits, 
as if fearful of too near an approach. 

" With finger-tip she condescends 

To touch the fingers of her friends, — 
As if she feared your palm might brand 
Some taint or stigma on her hand." 



Our Social Salutations, 145 

To shake hands without removing the glove, 
is regarded as an act of discourtesy. This 
idea may have descended from the days of 
chivalry and tournament, when the gauntlet 
took the place of the glove. " I maintain 
that the shaking of hands, rightly adminis- 
tered," said a distinguished clergyman of 
New York, " is a means of grace. So shake 
hands at the market, in the street, and, above 
all, at church. Some people quit church for 
want of this means of grace." 

" There is an art in shaking hands 
Not everybody understands ; 
And, as they go through life untaught, 
The simple act expresses naught. 

The fingers limp within our own 
. Awaken no responsive tone 
From the electric wires that send 
The hearty greeting to a friend. 

But, oh, there is a simple touch. 
Gentle and soft, that means so much! 
The pulses of our soul are stirred 
As if we heard the spoken word. 

The outstretched hand, the hearty grasp, 
The fingers locked in loving clasp, 
Fresh strength and courage have bestowed 
To many a one along life's road. 



146 stray Leaves of Literature. 

Some lonely traveller it may be, 
Yearning for love and sympathy, 
And quick the sign to comprehend, — 
"My heart is true ; and I'm your friend ! " 

Thus one repels, another draws ; 
And many are misjudged because 
Not one in twenty understands 
The gracious art of shaking hands." ' 

^ Josephine Pollard. 




THE 
SYMBOLISM OF FLOWERS. 

'* Their language ? Prithee ! why, they are themselves 
But bright thoughts syllabled to shape and hue; 
The tongue that erst was spoken by the elves, 
When tenderness as yet within the world was new." 

II LOWERS not only have their phe- 
nomena, but their legends, based 
upon the idea of a sympathetic char- 
acter, as that which transforms Daphne into a 
laurel, and changes the pale hue of a flower to 
crimson or purple at the occurrence of some 
shame or misfortune ; thus, for instance, the 
aloe that blossoms once in a century, and 
the night-blooming cereus which keeps vigil 
when all other flowers sleep, as well as the 
passion-flower which is said to symbolize our 
Saviour's agony in the Garden. Coleridgje, 
with his metaphysical proclivity to seize on 
rare and impressive analogies, has drawn a 
fine comparison from the water-lily. Speak- 

147 



148 stray Leaves of Literature. 

ing of the zest for new truth felt by those 
akeady well mstructed, as compared with the 
indifferent mental appetite of the ignorant, he 
says, "The water-hly in the midst of water 
opens its leaves and expands its petals at 
the first pattering shower, and rejoices in the 
rain-drops with a quicker sympathy than the 
parched shrub in the sandy desert." It may 
be said that there is not a flower in the cornu- 
copia of the floral goddess, but possesses its 
similitude, as well as its votary. Flowers 
represent the poetical side of human exist- 
ence ; they are exponents of its love and trust, 
and, like the queenhest of the graces, are a 
double benediction, " blessing him that gives, 
and her that takes." 

The use of floral emblems as decorations 
is traceable to the remotest ages ; ahke as to 
religious festivals, national triumphs, and the 
events of individual life, — the birth, the bridal, 
and the burial. The patriot was crowned with 
oak, and the poet with bay. Peace was sym- 
bolized with her olive-branch, and Bacchus 
wore his wreath of ivy. The Bible is not 
without its instructive floral allegories, — - its 
"rose of Sharon," and its "lily of the valley." 



The Symbolism of Flowers. 149 

Most of the minstrels have extolled the 
beauty of flowers in song. The ancient 
Greeks were lavish in their use of these fairy 
symbols : by them they expressed their grief, 
joy^ sympathy, and religious emotions. The 
Olympic victor was crowned with laurel. 

*' And many a maiden, with her various flowers, 
Bedecked her wmdows, and adorned her bovvers." 

The English, Spanish, Germans, and French 
are fond of flowers. Among England's old 
customs (according to Herrick), the Christ- 
mas evergreens were allowed to remain until 
Candlemas, when the mistletoe and holly 
were replaced with sprigs of box. 

*' Down with the rosemary and bayes, down with the 
mistleto ; 
Instead of holly, now upraise the greener box 
(for show). 

When yew is out, then birch comes in, and many 

flowers beside, 
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne, to honor 

Whitsuntide." 

Emerson, in his beautiful essay on '^ Gifts,'' 
remarks that '' flowers and fruits are always fit 



150 stray Leaves of Literature. 

presents ; flowers, because they are a proud 
assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all 
the utilities of the world. These gay natures 
contrast with the somewhat stern countenance 
of ordinary nature ; they are like music 
heard out of a workhouse." And it is the 
sympathy which all natural objects have for 
the best sentiments of our nature, that makes 
them always acceptable. 

How lavishly has the Creator enriched the 
earth with floral grace and beauty, and laden 
the atmosphere with their fragrant perfume ! 
With what endless variety of form and rich 
coloring is the kingdom of Flora bedecked 
and arrayed, and what exquisite delicacy and 
grace characterize the broom, the furze, 
and the manifold varieties of the fern and 
algae ! Gazing on a richly illuminated flower- 
garden, well might Hood exclaim, — 

" Like the birthday of the world, 
When earth was born in bloom, 
The light was made of many dyes, 
The air was all perfume ; 
There were crimson buds, and white and blue ; 
The very rainbow showers 
Had turned to blossoms as they fell, 
And sown the earth with flowers." 



The Symbolism of Flowers, 151 

Tuckerman, in an admirable paper on this 
subject, says, " Of the infinite variety of form, 
the exquisite combination of tints, the diver- 
sity of habits, and odorous luxuries they 
boast, it would require an elaborate treatise 
to unfold. Scarcely a tasteful fabric meets 
the eye, from the rich brocade of a past age, 
to the gay tints of to-day, that owes not its 
pleasing design to some flower. Not an 
ancient urn or modern cup of porcelain or 
silver, but illustrates in its shape, and the 
embossed or painted sides, how truly beauti- 
ful is art when it follows strictly these eternal 
models of grace and adaptation. Even archi- 
tecture, as Ruskin justly indicates, is chiefly 
indebted to the same source, not only in the 
minute decorations of a frieze, but in the 
acanthus that terminates a column. . . . 
The spirit of beauty, in no other inanimate 
embodiment, comes so near the heart. Flow- 
ers, indeed, are related to all the offices and 
circumstances of human life.'' 

" In Eastern lands, they talk in flowers. 

And they tell in a garland their loves and cares ; 
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers, 
On its leaves a mystic language bears." 



152 stray Leaves of Literature. 

Religion and poetry have ever found ex- 
pression in the symbolic vocabulary of Flora, 
and it has been the accepted and eloquent 
exponent of human emotions. The symbol- 
ism of flowers dates back, as already stated, 
to periods most remote. With the religious 
rites of the ancient Egyptians and Hindoos, 
the lotus was regarded as the sacred leaf, — 
the " emblem and cradle of creative night." 
It was revered in Egypt, as it is to this day 
in Hindostan, China, Japan, and elsewhere ; 
for they beheve it "was in the consecrated 
bosom of this plant that Brahma was born, 
and on it Osiris delights to float." It was 
called the ''Lily of the Nile," from its 
growing on the margin of that river. The 
Egyptians also delighted in the heliotrope. 
The nations of antiquity had also their na- 
tional floral emblems as well as the moderns. 
The Hindoos have their marigold ; the Chi- 
nese, the gorgeous chrysanthemum ; and the 
Assyrians, the water-lily. Persian poetry is 
full of the glories of Flora, while Grecian 
mythology is a storehouse of floral legends 
and fancies. The Romans had their tutelar 
deities decked with symbolic flowers : to Juno 



The Symbolism of Flowers. 153 

was devoted the lily; to Venus, the myrtle 
and the rose ; to Minerva, the olive and the 
violet ; to Ceres, the poppy ; to Mars, the 
ash; and to Jupiter, the oak. In modern 
times nations have their symbolic flowers. 
The thistle is the emblem of Scotland, and the 
shamrock of Ireland. The fleur-de-lis was the 
badge of the royal house of P'rance, the ama- 
ranth of that of Sweden. The rose blooms 
forever on the royal coat-of-arms of England. 
The Church has not only its symbolic 
flowers for its calendar, but for its altar ser- 
vice, — 

" Not gold nor gems, our altar dowers, 
But votive blooms and symbol flowers.'^ 

In almost every other instance in nature, the 
beautiful is only incidental to the useful ; but 
flowers have the objectless, spontaneous lux- 
ury of existence that belongs to childhood. 
They typify most eloquently the benign intent 
of the Creator, and, by gratifying through 
the senses the instinct of beauty, vindicate 
the poetry of life with a divine sanction. 
Floral decoration has entered into all depart- 
ments of industrial and ornamental skill. Of 



154 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

all material things, flowers excite the most 
chivalric sentiment, and hence are given 
and received, scattered and woven, cultivated 
and gathered, worn and won, with a more 
generous and refined spirit than any other 
symbol or ornament. 

They have been poetically called "the 
bright mosaics, that, with storied beauty, 
the floor of Nature's temple tessellate." 

Wordsworth exclaims, — 

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

Why is it that the eye kindles with dehght 
at the sight of beautiful flowers ? These fairy 
beauties of the woods and gardens are uni- 
versally cherished, in all lands, alike by the 
affluent and the poor, the cultured and the 
rude. Everywhere and under all circum- 
stances flowers are eagerly sought after and 
affectionately cherished. Wherever we look, 
we find floral suggestions in some form or 
other ; either artificial imitations for decking 
the hair or the head-dress of beauty, or 
enamelled on our china, embroidered in our 
tapestry, or woven into our carpets. 



The Symbolism of Flowers. 155 

" In every flower that blooms around, 

Some pleasing emblem we may trace, — 
Young love is in the myrtle found, 

And memory in the pansy's grace, 
Peace in the olive-branch we see, 

Hope in the half-shut iris glows, 
In the bright laurel victory. 

And lovely woman in the rose." 

In the United States, flowers are now more 
generally cultivated than in almost any other 
country. Like many other things, flower- 
culture has had its share in the progressive 
improvements of the age. The earliest 
known flower-garden in Europe seems to 
have been that at Padua, which dates from 
the year 1545. Horticulture is now a lucra- 
tive branch of trade in most civihzed coun- 
tries of the world. 

Longfellow's fine lines are a beautiful tribute 
to these *^ stars of earth," — 

** Everywhere about us they are glowing, — 
Some like stars to tell us Spring is born ; 

Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, 
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn. 

In wild and cultured places, in all seasons, 

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings ; 



156 stray Leaves of Literature. 

Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, 
How akin they are to human things. 

And with child-like, credulous affection. 
We behold their tender buds expand, — 

Emblems of our own great resurrection, 
Emblems of the bright and better land." 

The beautiful flowers are the accepted 
offerings also at the festive banquet and the 
chamber of sorrow, Luther is said to have 
kept a flower in a glass on his writing- 
table ; and from Chaucer, the pioneer poet, 
to the laureate Tennyson, the bards have 
tuned their lyres to these "children of the 
sun." 

Beech er w^as, it is well known, a great lover 
of flowers ; and these words are among his 
tributes to them: "What a pity flowers can 
utter no sound ! A singing rose, a whispering 
violet, a murmuring honeysuckle — oh, what 
a rare and exquisite melody would these be ! 
As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and 
valorous sunflowers, we shall never have a 
garden without them, both for their own sake, 
and for the sake of old-fashioned folks who 
used to love them." 



The Symbolism of Flowers, 157 

** Our outward life requires them not ; then where- 
fore had they birth ? 

To minister delight to man, and beautify the earth ; 

To comfort man, to whisper hope, whene'er his 
faith is dim, 

That He who careth for the flowers will care much 
more for him." 

As Ruskin beautifully puts it : " Flowers 
seem intended for the solace of ordinary 
humanity. Children love them. They are 
the cottager's treasure ; and in the crowded 
town, mark, as with a little broken fragment 
of rainbow, the windows of the workers in' 
whose heart rests the covenant of peace. 
Passionate or religious minds contemplate 
them with fond, feverish intensity. The affec- 
tion is seen severely calm in the works of 
many old religious painters, and mixed with 
more open and true country sentiment, in 
those of our own pre-Raphaelites. To the 
child and the girl, the peasant and the man- 
ufacturing operative, to the nun, the monk, 
and the lover, they are precious always." 

The reader will remember the fine passage 
in the "Winter's Tale," where Perdita is 



158 stray Leaves of Literature. 

represented as giving flowers to her visitors, 
appropriate to, and symbolical of, their various 
ages : — 

" Now, my fairest friend, 
I would I had some flowers o' the spring, that might 
Become your time of day ; and yours, and yours ; 

Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses. 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids : both oxlips, and 
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one." 




HEAD, HEART, AND HAND. 

ilT is said to be essential to a man's 
happiness, that he maintain pacific 
relations both with his conscience 
and his stomach ; each having alike the 
power either to conserve or to destroy his 
enjoyment of Hfe. 

The first named, given for the regulation 
of his actions and desires, imposes laws and 
limitations for the health of his mental and 
moral nature ; while the claims * of the 
stomach, although of a very different order, 
are no less imperative than those of the con- 
science. Although in either case hygienic 
law cannot be disregarded with impunity, yet, 
as a general rule, we are more apt to be 
attentive to the appeals of the lower nature 
than the higher. Conscience is, indeed, won- 
derfully patient and even indulgent with us, 
in our disobedience and disregard of its 

J 59 



i6o Stray Leaves of Literature. 

authority, — an illustration of which is seen 
in the following. A clergyman, visiting one 
of the prisons of the British metropolis, 
noticed a prisoner whose physiognomy he 
thought too good to be found in such a 
condition. "What are you here for?" was 
the question of the visitor. "For burglary,'* 
was the reply. " But have you no con- 
science?" was the rejoinder. "Oh, yes!" 
he said ; " and I suppose it is about as good 
as new, for I never used it ! " 

When the digestive system receives proper 
attention, it ministers generally through the 
blood to the demands of the whole physical 
system. Yet, while all this lubrication and 
nourishment of the body are going on, we are 
usually unconscious of its silent operations. 
While the organs of sense perform their func- 
tions, we seem to forget our obhgations to these 
"five gateways of knowledge," if we do not, 
indeed, ignore their existence. So it is, also, 
with our pedal extremities, on which we depend 
for locomotion. When thes^ essential organs 
are, however, disabled, or we are deprived of 
them, we at once begin to estimate their great 
value to our happiness. 



Head, Heart, and Hand. i6i 

The mysterious union of soul and body — 
like that of hfe itself — is a problem that 
baffles all our efforts at solution. That the 
physical and metaphysical elements of our 
nature do act and re-act upon each other, 
is self-evident ; but how the processes are 
affected, we are unable to determine. This 
union of the two attributes of our being — 
so dissimilar, yet so intimately connected, 
and so perfectly adapted to their respective 
offices — is the marvel of creation ; one being 
the complement of the other : for without 
the mind, the body could have no knowledge 
of any thing in the external world ; nor could 
the mind accomplish its behest without the 
physical organism, since the mind receives 
and imparts knowledge of the affairs of life 
through the organic senses. 

The human head, endowed as it is with the 
organs of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, and 
being the seat of intellect and language, is 
the crowning glory of our nature ; and we 
instinctively recognize the distinction by in- 
variably making our appeals to headquarters. 
We await the responses from lip or eye ; the 
latter, sometimes, with greater power than 



1 62 stray Leaves of Literature. 

with the verbal rhetoric of the former. Is not 
the head, also, the electric telegraph station, 
whence messages are transmitted by the nerve- 
wires to the several departments of the human 
body, instructing hand or foot, heart or tongue, 
to do its bidding? 

It is a remarkable fact concerning the brain, 
that, although it is the seat of all sensation, it 
is yet itself insensible. To cut the brain, we 
are told by physiologists, gives no pain ; yet 
in the brain resides the power of feehng 
pain in any part of the body. Without our 
nervous system, which derives its supplies 
of nerve-fluid from the brain, we should be 
alike insensible to all sensations of pleasure 
or pain. 

The heart, which is by common consent 
poetically considered to be the seat of the 
aifections and emotions, is but the reservoir 
of the blood. 

Quaint Francis Quarles thus apostrophizes 
a good heart : " O happy heart, where 
piety affecteth, humiUty subjecteth, repent- 
ance correcteth ; where obedience dissecteth, 
perseverance perfecteth, and charity con- 
necteth ! " 



Head, Heart, and Hand. 163 

Like the head and the hand, the heart is 
liable to get out of order sometimes : the 
latter, indeed, is proverbially subject to dis- 
temper and disease. Heart-disease is usually- 
attributed to the feverish excitements of 
modern commercial hfe ; but there is another 
type of heart-disease that has been of long 
standing, and which is not only traceable to 
quite a different source, but which is likely to 
prevail as long as human hearts are the seats 
of passions. 

In the "Breviarie of Health'^ (1547), we 
find the following statement : *^ There is an 
infirmitie named Heiros in the Greek, Amor 
in Latin, and in English is called love-sick ; 
and women may have this fickleness, as well 
as men. Young persons are much troubled 
with this impediment. This infirmitie is best 
cured by the use of mirthe and nienie 
companie." 

A good face is said to be a letter of 
recommendation, but a good heart is equal 
to a letter of credit. 

Now, for the hand. Let us take hold of it 
and look at it closely, and it indicates much to 
us ; so much, indeed, that it would be difficult 



164 stray Leaves of Literature. 

to go through life's duties and obligations 
without it. 

Wrote Quintilian, long ago, "Other parts 
of the human body assist the speaker, but 
the hands speak for themselves : by them we 
ask, we promise, we invoke, we dismiss, we 
threaten, we deprecate ; we express fear, joy, 
grief, our doubts, our assent, our penitence ; 
we show moderation, profusion ; we mark 
number and time." 

Were it not for the facile fingers that guide 
the pen and serve us in a thousand other use- 
ful ways, the social system of life would end, 
and chaos would come again. 

** The instrument of instruments, the hand ! 
Courtesy's mdex, chamberlain to Nature, 
The body's soldier, the mouth's caterer, 
Psyche's great secretary, the dumb's eloquence. 
The blind man's candle and his forehead's buckler. 
The minister of wrath, and friendship's sign ! " 

Professor Wilson, referring to the superior- 
ity of the hand, writes thus : " The organs of 
all other senses, even in their greatest per- 
fection, are dependent upon the hand for the 
exaltation of their powers. It constructs for 



Head, Heart, and Hand. 165 

the eye a copy of itself, and thus gives it a 
telescope with which to range among the 
stars ; and by another copy, on a slightly 
different plan, furnishes it with a microscope, 
and introduces it into a new world of wonders. 
It constructs for the ear the instruments by 
-which it is educated, and sounds them in its 
hearing till its powers are trained to the full. 
It plucks for the nostril the flower which it 
longs to smell, and distils for it the fragrance 
which it covets. As for the tongue, if it had 
not the hand to serve it, it might abdicate 
its throne as the lord of taste. In short, the 
organ of touch is the minister of its sister 
senses, and, without any play of words, is the 
hand-maid of them all." 

In " Dombey and Son " we notice the follow- 
ing fine sentence : ^' Long may it remain in 
this mixed world a point not easy of decision, 
which is the most beautiful evidence of the 
Almighty's goodness, — the delicate fingers 
that are formed for sensitiveness and sym- 
pathy of touch, and made to minister to 
pain and grief; or the rough, hard Captain 
Cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, 
and softens in a moment." 



1 66 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

As already hinted, efforts of the will are 
instantly and instinctively responded to, as if 
the hand itself were the seat of that will ; yet 
the very perfection of the instrument makes 
us insensible to its use. Indeed, we use our 
hand as unconsciously as we draw our breath. 

It has been said that the will is the man ; 
but the statement must be accepted with 
qualifications, since much is done by the 
physical man that is purely automatic and 
independent of the will. Our breathing and 
our digestive processes, for instance : we yawn, 
cough, sneeze, laugh, and weep involuntarily. 
Contact of the air with the eye, and the loss 
of moisture, cause the involuntary wink ; and 
if, in passing the hand before the eye of a 
friend, he is assured that you will not hurt that 
organ, yet the eye instinctively will wink. 

Is there any. real distinction to be found 
between voluntary and involuntary actions? 
Or, rather, is not man as to his physical 
nature partly automatic, and as to his psycho- 
logical the incarnation of will-power? Man 
is the only terrestrial being conscious of his 
nature, since he can analyze his faculties, 
his will, intellect, and physiology. 



Head, Heart, and Hand. 167 

What, indeed, has not the human mind 
accomphshed in its discoveries in the reahn 
of nature ? Max Miiller sums up its explora- 
tions : ^' Man has studied every part of nature, 
— the mineral treasures of the earth, the 
flowers of each season, the animals of every 
continent, the laws of storms, and the move- 
ments of the heavenly bodies ; he has analyzed 
every substance, dissected every organism ; he 
knows every bone and muscle, every nerve and 
fibre of his own body, to the ultimate elements 
which compose his flesh and blood ; he has 
meditated on the nature of his soul, on the 
laws of his mind, and tried to penetrate into 
the last causes of all being." Added to this 
is the somewhat recent science of philology, 
now one of the favorite studies of archaeolo- 
gists. Language, indeed, is itself the myste- 
rious characteristic of man, and forms an 
impassable barrier between him and the lower 
order of animals. How thankful should we 
be for the gift of life, and the wonderful 
mechanism of the "house we live in"! 
Charles Mackay has written for us the 
hymn of thanksgiving, — 



1 68 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

" For sight, for taste, for touch, for smell, 
For sense of life ineffable ; 
For health of mind and strength of hand, 
For power to think and understand; 
For every joy we feel or see, 
For hope and love and sympathy, — 
Lord, we are thankful unto thee." 

Indispensable to us as are the head, heart, 
and hand, we should not ignore the fact that 
we are no less indebted to the inexorable 
stomach for its untiring good service to the 
bodily functions, while we also depend solely 
upon our pedalian extremities for locomotion. 

By way of /^<? /-note, thereby, the following 
few sentences may not be inappropriate, since 
they may serve to place our subject upon a 
proper footing with the reader. But for the 
feet, we should cease to be pedestrians, and 
our peregrinations would be at end ; with- 
out these important travelling companions, 
we should become immovable fixtures in 
society, — as immovable as the trees of the 
forest. It has been said that "the human 
foot is the wonder of wonders." We are not 
accustomed to think much about its complex 
mechanism of muscle, ligament, band, and 



Head, Heart, and Hand. 169 

bone, which act in combination as we walk. 
Some have, indeed, held that the foot, more 
than any other member of the human body, 
is distinctively characteristic of man, as sep- 
arate from all other created beings. Individ- 
ual character may be said to be indicated by 
the form of the foot, as well as by the gait or 
style of the walk. Unlike the animal creation, 
the "paragon of animals " stands erect, as 
befits its acknowledged lord. Although so 
remote from the head, yet whatever affects 
the foot is instantaneously known at " head- 
quarters " by the nerve system, as by the elec- 
tric current. It is still presumed to be an open 
question as to the duality of the human mind, 
— whether it is capable of performing two 
functions simultaneously. Yet how frequently 
do people walk and talk at the same time I 
Mental action seems to be more than prob- 
able : it is implied, or the walking or the 
talking would, doubtless, go astray. " Man 
balances himself with his arms in walking 
and running. It is not accident that raises 
the horse's bushy tail high into the air, when 
it races about in frisky, youthful exuberance ; 
nor does chance teach it to bend head and 



I/O stray Leaves of Literature. 

neck low when it drags, slowly and painfully, 
heavy loads up steep mountain-sides. The 
squirrel is balanced and aided by his long, 
feathery tail ; and when the cat springs with 
fierce precision upon its unsuspecting prey, 
it also is guided through the air by its stiffly 
extended tail. The untaught boy already 
moves his outstretched arms instinctively up 
and down, as he first attempts to walk a 
narrow plank, or to cross a br6ok on a single 
log. The rope-dancer but adds to the length 
of his arms by his pole, and thus walks the 
more safely on his perilous path. 

"The whole process of walking, however, 
is a constant balancing of the human body. 
Standing still, it rests upon the two column- 
shaped legs, so that the centre of gravity falls 
between the two heels. As soon as we begin 
to walk, we transfer the body from one foot 
to the other, during which transfer the legs 
at the same time change place with each 
other, and move forward. One leg supports 
the body, the other glides to its next resting- 
place. Slightly bent, so as not to touch the 
ground, it swings like a pendulum, held up 
by neither bone nor sinew, but merely by the 



Head, Heart, 'and Hand, 171 

pressure of the air ; while the supporting leg 
bends likewise, and the body thus literally 
falls forward. But before it actually falls, the 
swinging leg has accomplished its movement, 
and, resting upon the ground, it supports in 
its turn the body. In running quickly, there 
is, therefore, a moment when the body really 
hangs in the air without any support what- 
ever." ' 

An eminent authority ^ remarks, "There is 
nothing more beautiful than the structure of 
the human foot, nor, perhaps, any demonstra- 
tion which would lead a well-educated person 
to desire more of anatomy than that of the 
foot. The foot has in its structure all the 
fine appliances that you see in a building. 
In the first place, there is an arch, in what- 
ever way you regard the foot ; looking down 
upon it, we perceive several bones coming 
round from the astragalus, and forming an 
entire circle of surfaces in the contact. If 
we look at the profile of the foot, an arch 
is still manifest, of which the posterior part is 
formed by the heel, and the anterior by the 
ball of the great toe ; and in the front, we 

^ Harper's Magazine. ^ j^^^ ^qW, 



1/2 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

find, in that direction, a transverse arch : so 
that instead of standing, as might be imagined, 
upon a soHd bone, we stand upon an arch, 
composed of a series of bones which are 
united by the most curious provisions for the 
elasticity of the foot. Hence, when jumping 
from a height directly upon the heel, a severe 
shock is felt : not so if we alight on the 
ball of the toe ; for then an elasticity is in 
the whole foot, and the weight of the body 
is thrown upon this arch, and the shock 
avoided." This natural arch of the foot is 
regarded as distinctive of superior grace of 
form and refinement of nature, but modern 
fashion insists upon going even beyond the 
limits of natural grace and symmetry. Such 
a silly attempt to impi^ove upon nature's true 
standard not only fails of its intended effect, 
but it also usually entails upon its fair votary 
the penalty of the folly, in the inability to 
walk with ease and grace, and maintain a 
well-poised gait. 




SMILES AND TEARS. 

" Smiles from reason flow, 
To brute denied, and are of love the food." 

Milton. 

|HE rare faculty of looking at the 
bright side of things produces, to 
some extent, those effects which the 
alchemist ascribed to the fabled philosopher's 
stone ; for it often transmutes seeming evil 
into real good. That life has its shadows as 
well as its sunshine ; that its joys are tem- 
pered, and often brightened, by the contrast 
of its sorrow, — is not only the result of a 
necessary law, but one eminently conducive 
to our social well-being. Longfellow observes, 
" The rays of happiness, like those of light, 
are colorless when unbroken." The great 
panacea for the seeming accidents, ills, and 
vicissitudes of life, is a spirit of cheerful 
acquiescence. If we would, as the optimist, 
view life philosophically, and accept it as a 
^73 



174 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

boon and benison from Heaven, we ought 
to regard its ever-varying phases, and espe- 
cially its bitter, as well as bright experiences, 
as alike beneficent in their design for the 
maturing and developing of our moral 
nature. 

Leigh Hunt remarks : ^^ God made both 
tears and laughter, and both for kind pur- 
poses ; for as laughter enables mirth and 
surprise to breathe freely, so tears enable sor- 
row to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder 
sorrow from becoming despair and madness ; 
and laughter is one of the privileges of rea- 
son, being confined to the human species." 
Both laughter and tears have their charac- 
teristic differences, and they are deter- 
mined by the occasion that calls them into 
action. '' Whatever causes laughter, deter- 
mines whether laughter is good or bad. If 
it is the expression of levity or vanity, it is 
frivolous. If it be the expression of moral 
feeling, — and it often is, — it is as reverent 
as tears are. In a natural state, tears and 
laughter go hand in hand ; for they are twin- 
born. Like two children sleeping in one 
cradle, when one wakes and stirs the other 



Smiles and Tears. 175 

wakes also." ' Laughter is not always, how- 
ever, a certain index of the feelings ; for 
many kind, as well as enraged hearts are 
driven to the resource of laughing to conceal 
their tears. Neither does weeping always 
indicate sadness of heart. Some weep for 
very joy. There is a sacredness in the tears 
of sorrow, and they speak more eloquently 
than articulate speech. 

" There are times when some great sorrow 
has torn the mind away from its famihar sup- 
ports, and laid level those defences which in 
prosperity seemed so stable ; when the most 
rooted convictions of the reason seem rot- 
tenness, and the blossom of our heavenward 
imagination goes up before the blast as dust ; 
when our works and joys and hopes, with 
all their multitude and pomp and glory, 
seem to go down together into the pit, and 
the soul is left as a garden that hath no 
water, and as a wandering bird cast out 
of the nest, — in that day of trouble, and of 
treading down and perplexity, the noise of 
voices, the mirth of the tabret, and the joy 
of the harp are silent as the grave." ^ 

* Beecher. 2 British Quarterly Review. 



1/6 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

There is a luxury of feeling in tears of 
deep sorrow, because the heart's anguish is 
thereby lessened, and its griefs distilled as 
the summer shower when succeeded by the 
sunshine. Tears have been imaged by the 
night, as laughter has been by the day ; but 
there is an intermediate hour of grace and 
beauty we call twilight, and this may rep- 
resent the still more fascinating smile, A 
smile does wonders in hghting up the dark 
corners of a man's heart. It has power to 
electrify his whole being. Its fascination is 
most potent. 

*' As welcome as sunshine in every place, 
Is the beaming approach of a good-natured face." 

Good-humor is a bright color in the web 
of life, but self-denial only can make it a 
flist color. A person who is the slave of 
selfishness has so many wants of his own to 
be supphed, so many interests of his own to 
support and defend, that he has no leisure 
to study the w^ants and interests of others. 
It is impossible that he should be happy 
himself, or make others around him so. 

Good-humor is the clear blue sky of the 



Smiles and Tears. 177 

soul, on which every star of talent will shine 
more clearly, and the sun of genius encounter 
no vapors in its passage. It is the most 
exquisite beauty of a fine face, a redeeming 
grace in a homely one. It is hke the green 
in a landscape, harmonizing in every color, 
mellowing the light, and softening the hue of 
the dark; or Hke a flute in a full concert 
of instruments, a sound not at first discovered 
by the ear, yet filhng up the breaks in the 
concord with its deep melody. 

It is not great calamities that embitter 
existence : it is the petty vexations, the small 
jealousies, little disappointments, and minor 
miseries, that make the heart heavy and the 
temper sour. 

*' Oh, smiles have power, a world of good 

To fling around us ever ! 
Then let us wear their golden beams, 

And quench their ardor never. 
For while a smile illumes the eye. 

And wreathes the lip of beauty, 
The task of life must ever be 

A pure and pleasant duty." 

Mirth is sometimes an excellent medicine 
and tonic; it is one of nature's instinctive 



178 stray Leaves of Literature. 

methods of recuperating the over-taxed mind 
and body. What a febrifuge ! what an exer- 
ciser of evil spirits ! 

Mirthfulness has a great power over the 
excited feehngs and the angry irritations of 
men : it makes them more generous and more 
just. It is often more powerful with men 
than conscience or reason ; and Shakspeare 
asserts that it " bars a thousand harms, and 
lengthens life." It has been well said, how- 
ever, that " mirth should be the embroidery of 
conversation, not the web ; the ornament 
of the mind, not the furniture." 

" Laughter is not, therefore, a foolish thing. 
Sometimes there is even wisdom in it. Sol- 
omon himself admits there is a time to laugh, 
as well as a time to mourn." 

Carlyle says, " Very much lies in laughter ; 
it is the cipher key wherewith we decipher 
the whole man." 

Lavater says, ^' Shun that man who never 
laughs, who dislikes music or the glad face 
of a child." This is what everybody feels, 
and none more than children, who are quick 
at reading characters; and their strong 
instinct rarely deceives them. 



Smiles and Tears. 179 

Is there any thing Hke the ringing laugh of 
an innocent, happy child? Can any other 
music so echo through the heart's inner 
chambers? It is sympathetic, too, beyond 
other melodies. 

Sardonic laughter derives its origin from a 
herb said to be found in Sardinia, which 
resembles parsley, and which, according to 
an ancient authority, " causes those who tea 
it to die of laughter." Homer first, and 
others after him, call laughter which conceals 
some noxious design Sardonican, 

" Laughter ! 'tis the poor man's plaster, 
Covering up each sad disaster. 
Laughmg, he forgets his troubles, 
Which, though real, seem but bubbles." 

Laughter has been said to be more con- 
tagious than any cutaneous complaint : the 
convulsion is propagated like sound. When 
Liston the comedian presented himself at 
the theatre, on one occasion, and made his 
comic grimaces merely, the entire audience 
became convulsed with laughter. 

Thomas Moore records in his diary a visit 
with Sydney Smith to Deville's the phrenol- 



1 80 stray Leaves of Literature. 

ogist, and speaks there of the jovial canon's 
inextinguishable and contagious laughter, 
which he joined in even to tears. But here 
is a pretty pendant to Johnson holding by 
the post : '^ Left Lord John's with Sydney 
and Luttrell ; and when we got to Cockspur 
Street (having laughed all the way), we were 
all three seized with such convulsions of 
cachinnation at something (I forget what) 
which Sydney said, that we were obliged to 
separate, and reel each his own way with 
the fit." 

The same canon is said to have let off this 
retort : when it was being proposed to place 
wooden pavement around St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral, he replied, " If the dean and chapter 
would only lay their heads together, the thing 
would be done ! " 

" Kind words have been styled the bright 
flowers of existence. They make a paradise 
of home, however humble it may be. They 
are the jewellery of the heart, the gems of the 
domestic circle, the symbols of human love. 

"They never bhster the tongue or lips, 
and we have never heard of any mental 
trouble arising from this quarter. Though 



Smiles and Tears. i8i 

they do not cost much, yet they accomplish 
much : they help one's own good-nature 
and good-will. Soft words soften our own 
soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of 
wrath, and make it blaze more fiercely." 

Kind words are benedictions. They are 
not only instruments of power, but of benev- 
olence and courtesy; blessings both to the 
speaker and hearer of them. 

Pleasant words come bubbling up in a 
good-natured heart, like the freely gushing 
waters of a fountain. It is as easy to speak 
them as it is to breathe. They come forth 
spontaneously from the lips of kindness, as 
the rays from the sun. 

" Pour forth the oil, pour boldly forth ; 

It will not fail, until 
Thou failest vessels to provide 

Which it may largely fill. 
Make channels for the streams of love, 

Where they may broadly run ; 
And love has ever flowing streams 

To fill them every one. 
For we must share, if we would keep 

That blessing from above. 
Ceasing to give, we cease to have ; 

Such is the law of love." ' 

^ Trench. 



1 82 stray Leaves of Literature. 

How do such gentle charities convert even 
the infirmities of advanced Kfe, which it can- 
not dissipate, into occasions of pleasanter 
anticipation, as the sun at evening hnes the 
thickest clouds with pearl and silver, and 
edges their masses with golden sheen ! 

The bright side of life is that which catches 
the reflected light of heaven, and echoes 
back its harmonies ; thus supplying a sweet 
antidote to the troubles and disturbing influ- 
ences of earth. 

How great is the empire of joy which God 
has designed for us in his infinite goodness ! 
We spring into existence, and the varied sea- 
sons lavish upon our senses their variegated 
flowers and fruits. Hope gilds the future 
with its iris hues, friendship redoubles our 
pleasures and alleviates our pains, and the 
glittering orbs of heaven are the bright 
heralds of a nobler life hereafter. 

Joy is the friend of innocence ; but there 
are many specious counterfeits of pleasure, 
with which the weak and unwary are beguiled. 
Who would drink poison to produce agreeable 
sensations ? 



Smiles and Tears. 183 

Groans and complaints, it has been truly- 
said, are the worst possible staple of social 
intercourse. " A laugh/* says Charles Lamb, 
'^ is worth a hundred groans in any state of 
the market.'* 

William Dunbar, whom Sir Walter Scott 
so much admired, has the following stanza, 
which, as the poet died at so early a period 
of the language as the year 1520, is almost 
a marvel of sweetness and harmony : — 

" Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind 

The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow. 
To God be humble, to thy friend be kind, 

And with thy neighbor gladly lend and borrow : 
His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow." 

A complaining spirit magnifies troubles in 
proportion as it dilates upon them. The 
better plan is gratefully to recount the pleas- 
ures by the way, which are too seldom the 
incentives of thankfulness. 

Let us, then, carry along with us in our 
hearts some bright streaks of sunshine for a 
rainy day. Dark days are not less needful 
or healthful for us than bright ones. 



184 stray Leaves of Literature. 

Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our 
hearts : we want shade and rain, to cool, 
refresh, and fertilize them. 

" Sweet are the uses of adversity, 
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, 
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head." 




DAY AND NIGHT. 

* When darkness ruled with universal sway, 
God spake, and kindled up the blaze of day! " 

l^jLTHOUGH in juxtaposition, and 
directly opposite in character and 
appearance, yet Day and Night are 
not in antagonism : on the contrary, they may 
be said to be on the most friendly terms, and 
fulfil their respective missions with harmoni- 
ous fidelity and precision. More than this 
may be affirmed of them, — they are really 
indispensably necessary to each other's exist- 
ence ; and it has been said, so mutually 
sympathetic are they, that no sooner does 
one begin to " dechne " than the other 
*^ breaks.'* It may safely be added, that 
since their birth they have never been known 
to disagree and interrupt one another in their 
appointed routine. It is true, however, that 
they differ essentially m character and aspect, 

185 



1 86 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

— one being of a cheerful, sunny disposition, 
and much addicted to activity and excitement ; 
the other of a sombre and gloomy temper, 
and given rather to retirement and repose. 
Thus they harmoniously act, — the one afford- 
ing us a pleasant sphere of exertion, and en- 
joyment of life's prismatic scenes ; the other 
bringing to us a dehghtful respite from toil, 
and by its recuperative influence thus fitting 
us for renewed enjoyment. Were it not so 
familiar to us, the advent of day and its grad- 
ually giving way to night would provoke our 
astonishment as something mysterious, if not, 
indeed, miraculous ; but it is to us simply an 
every-day occurrence. 

Old Father Time, who is portrayed to us 
with a stern visage, and a long, flowing gray 
beard, accompanied at all times with his in- 
evitable scythe, takes no heed to the shadow 
on the dial or to the sounding of the bell, 
never stops, but hke a resistless phantom 
speeds ever on his way, needing not to 
pause for rest or recuperation. If we seek 
to detain him for a friendly greeting on the 
advent of the New Year or some other festive 
occasion, instead of his staying his winged 



Day and Night. 187 

feet he only seems to glide from us with the 
greater celerity. 

The accession of a new year is to him but 
the succession of the old : all seasons and 
changes are alike to him ; and yet this mythi- 
cal, invisible, yet ever-present visitant keeps 
ever our inseparable companion. We some- 
times seem to catch a glimpse of his mystic 
presence : to some he appears in the iris 
hues of hope, the harbinger of sunshine and 
joy ; to others an unwelcome guest, hke an 
ominous cloud charged with dark forebodings 
of grief and sadness. Darkness and light 
divide the course of time, in the moral as 
well as in the physical world ; while oblivion 
shares with m^emory a great part of our exist- 
ence. *^ We slightly remember our felicities, 
and the smartest strokes of affliction leave 
but short smart upon us." ^ 

The division of time into seven days is by 
far the most permanent division, and " the 
most ancient monument of astronomical 
knowledge. It was used by the Brahmins 
of India, with the same denomination used 
by us, and was alike found in the calendars 

* Sir T. Browne. 



1 88 Stray Leaves of Literature. 

of the Jews, Egyptians, Arabs, and Assyrians. 
It has survived the fall of empires, and has 
existed among all successive generations, — 
a proof of the common origin of mankind. 
The division of the year into months is also 
very old, and almost universal, but not so 
ancient or uniform as the seven days, or 
week." ^ 

The day commenced with sunrise among 
most of the Northern nations ; at sunset, with 
the Athenians and Jews ; and among the 
Romans, at midnight, as with us. The Chi- 
nese divide the day into twelve parts, of two 
hours each. The astronomical day begins at 
noon, is divided into twenty-four hours, and 
is the mode of reckoning used in the nautical 
almanac. The week is the quarter of a 
month, or seven days ; and the twelve months, 
in their order, make up the year, — the space 
of time required for a revolution of the earth 
around the sun. 

Day and night have their claims to beauty 
as well as utility; the day for its golden 
sunshine, night for its matchless canopy of 
silver stars. As to the term "day," its 

^ Mrs. Somerville. 



Day and Night, 189 

root is probably of Anglo-Saxon origin, — 
dae^, signifying the period of light; while 
'^ night" seems to have been derived from 
7tak, literally meaning to disappear or dis- 
continue. 

Sunrise at sea, or as viewed from Alpine 
heights, is a glorious vision ; and it has often 
been the theme of the artist's pencil and the 
minstrel's lyre. Here is a fine apostrophe 
to it : — 

" Now to the music of the purple dawn 

The bright, entranced stars pass slowly by, 
Lingering to see the glorious sunlight born, 

Ere they sink fondly in the yearning sky. 
Now the earth chirrups, like a wakened bird 

Which gives its heart unto the jubilant air. 
Only one voice throughout the world is heard, 

And that proclaims that life is bright and fair." 

How full of significance is the radiant dawn 
of day, — symbolical of the bright budding 
of infancy, its virgin freshness, purity, and 
beauty. As the brilliant hues of the morning 
become gradually absorbed by the intenser 
radiance of the solar beams, so the noontide 
of our human life is imaged. 

Daylight has been poetically called the 



190 sir ay Leaves of Literature. 

''light of heaven," since it not only enables 
us to see all things that come within the 
range of our vision, giving to the many- 
hued and fragrant flowers, as well as all other 
objects of grace and beauty, their exquisite 
variety and glory. 

" How glorious is the mom ! how sweet the air, 
Perfumed with fragrant odors that the sun 
Exhaleth from the flowers of the earth ! 
Hark ! how the birds, those warbling choristers. 
Do strain their pretty throats, and sweetly sing 
Glad hynms to Him who made this glorious light I ^ 

There is also the quiet, restftil eventide, an 
hour when the sun retires and the shadows 
falL It is a time which in all ages the good 
and thoughtful have loved for its quietude 
and its peaceful associations. Dming the 
day we hold intercourse with men ; and in 
this silent hour of eventide, we have leisure 
to commune with ourselves, our books, or 
Natiu-e herself. 

" The clouds of sunset, fold on fold. 
Are purple and tawny, and edged with gold ; 
Soft as the silence after a hymn 
Is the hush that falls as the light grows dim. 



Day and Night. 191 

Not even the thought of a sound is heard, 
Till the dusk is thrilled by a hidden bird 
That suddenly sings, as the light grows dim, 
Its wonderful, passionate vesper hymn." 

The witching time of twilight is the favorite 
of the poet ; it is the stilly hour of sweet vigils, 
visions, and vespers. Eventide is the pleasant 
time for study, reading, and meditation. 

" Oh, precious evenings ! all too swiftly sped ! 
Leaving us heir to amplest heritages 
Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages, 
And giving tongues unto the silent dead ! " 

The Greek poets gave to night the beau- 
tiful name Euphrone, indicating the time of 
good feeling, of hope, of calm yet joyous 
contemplation. 

" Evening comes on with glowing sky, 
And golden bars upraised on high 
To let the weary sun pass by ; 
Then follows that uncertain light, 
Which hesitates 'twixt day and nighty 
And poets designate twilight." 

Touching twilight, Leigh Hunt, in one of 
his admirable essays, gives us some humorous 
lines on this twilight, which he regards as a 
most unserviceable sort of sky-light. 



192 stray Leaves of Literature. 

** Weak, wavering gleam, that, wending on its way 
Towards the night, still lingers with the day. 
Twilight's a half-and-half affair, that would 
With all its heart be moonlight, if it could. 

Something between blank darkness and broad 

light, — 
Like dotard Day coquetting with young Night. 

Hail, gentle night ! Thou art the almoner 
of blessings to the weary wayfarer, to the 
sick and the poor; for under thy benign 
and peaceful reign, the tumultuous passions 
are stilled, the strife of tongues hushed, and 
thou bringest to all sorrow and suffering thy 
" sweet, oblivious antidote," — sleep. 

" Day hath its golden pomp, its brilliant scenes ; 
But^ richer gifts are thine alone : 
A strange, mysterious charm belongs to thee, 
To morning, noon, and eventide unknown." 

Night has been styled " the mother of 
day," and by another, poetically, as *^ Nature 
in mourning for the loss of the sun." Yet 
with all her sombre guise, and darkened face, 
is she not an almoner of rich blessings to the 
sons and daughters of toil, and especially to 
the suffering and the sad. 



Day and Night. 193 

" Night is the time for rest. How sweet, when labors 

close, 
To gather round an aching breast the curtain of 

repose ; 
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head 
Upon our own delightful bed ! '* 

The following lines are in sympathy with 
the inspiration of this stilly hour : — 

" Heavy dews 
Pearl the soft eyelids of night-cradled flowers, 
That, opening, smile but when the warm sun woos. 

In daylight's golden hours. 
Sadness comes o'er me with the twilight gray ; 
And, with the day, my rhyme is laid away.'* 

And as, perchance, the present may prove 
the witching hour with the patient reader, it 
only remains to wish him — a good-night. 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Alonzo of Aragon . - 9 

Amphion 56 

Arabian Nights 22 

Ascham's "Schoolmaster" . 12 

" Auld Robin Gray" ........... 40 

Avellaneda 21 

Bacon, Lord 16 

Bacon's Essays 10 

Bailey 127 

Ballad, A Welsh 44 

Ballad literature 23 

Ballads, Saxon, etc 34 

Barbauld, Mrs 70 

Barry the artist 65 

Beckford, W. ..... 14 

Beecher, H. W 156, 175 

Beethoven 102 

Bell, Dr 171 

Bethune, George W 105 

Biblical music 99 

Book-lovers 8,32 

Books, Survival of 108 

Brant, Sebastian 113 

" Breviarie of Health " 163 

Bright, Timothy 15 

British Quarterly Review 175 

195 



196 Index. 



PAGE 

Britton, S 4, 9 

Browne, Sir T 19 

Bimyan, J 115 

Burke, Edmund 65, 114 

Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy" 14 

Bury, Richard de 30 

Butler's '' Hudibras " 24 

Carlyle, T 2, 126, 178 

Cervantes 21 

Chevy Chase 39 

Child, F. J. 41 

Childhood 122 

Church, Romish 137 

Clarke, Dr 56 

Clement XIV 136 

Coleridge on Fuller 17 

Coleridge, S. T. . 147 

Coles, Dr. A . 33 

Collier, Jeremy 29 

Conscience, Unused 160 

Cowper, W 60 

Curiosities of Literature 25 

Cuttle, Captain 165 

Cyrus's expedition 141 

Davis, Prof 31 

Day 185 

De Bury, Richard 30 

Den ham's " Cooper's Hill " iii 

Dickson, J. S 127 

D'Israeli, Isaac 25 

Don Quixote 21 

Drake's " American Flag " 51 



Index. 197 

PAGE 

Drayton's ballad 37 

Dunbar, W 183 

Elizabethan Epoch 13 

Emerson, R. W 133, 149 

Eventide 191 

Faces, Various 92 

Fiction, Readers of 26 

Fletcher of Saltoun 35 

Floral decorations 153 

Flowers, Symbolism of .... i 147 

Foot, The . 168 

Fuller, Thomas 17, 126 

Galland 23 

Gibbon, E, . . . 114 

Gil Bias 20 

"God save the Queen" 47 

Goldschmidt (Jenny Lind) 44 

Goldsmith, O 63 

Good-humor 176 

" Hail, Columbia " 49 

Hall, Bishop 130 

Hand, The 139, 143 

Hand-shaking 145 

Harper's Magazine 171 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 103 

Hazhtt, W. C I 

Head, Heart, and Hand 159 

Herrick 149 

Hibberd J07 

Holmes, O. W 9> 39 



198 Index. 



PAGE 

" Home, Sweet Home " 43 

Hood, Thomas 72, 150 

Home's " Douglas " 120 

" Hudibras " 24 

Human Sympathy 58 

Hunt, Leigh 6, 54, 174, 191 

Johnson, Dr. S 56, 67 

Key, F. S 50 

Lamb, Charles 183 

Laughter and tears 1 74, 1 79 

Lavater 178 

Le Sage 21 

Life's Little Day 121 

Lily of the Nile 152 

Lind, Jenny . 44 

Lisle, Rouget de 52 

Longfellow, H. W 173 

Luther's " Table-talk " 12 

Mackay, C 167 

Marsellaise Hymn 52 

Marsh, G. P. 5 

Milton, John . 73 

Mivart, St. George 128 

Montaigne on books 31 

Moore, Tnomas 179 

IVIore, Hannah 112 

More's " Utopia " 12 

Morley on aphorism 10 

Mozart 103 

Mliller, Max 167 



Index. 199 

PAGE 

Music a language 98, 104 

Music, Biblical 99 

Music, Mystery of 95 

Musicians, Great 102 

Nasology 89 

Newton, Sir Isaac 16 

Night 192 

Paganini 103 

Payne, J. Howard 43 

Percy's " Reliques " 41 

Physiognomy 84 

" Principia " of Newton 16 

Quarles, Francis 162 

Quintilian on the hand 164 

Religio Medici. 19 

Rice on music 96 

Richmond, Legh 99 

Robin Hood 37 

Rouget de Lisle 52 

" Rule, Britannia " 48 

Ruskin, J 3j 28, 157 

Saxe, J. G " 123 

"Schyppeof Fooles " 113 

Scott, Sir W 183 

Seasons and their Change 69 

Seelye, J. H 109 

Selden's ''Table-talk" 11 

Selfishness 61 

Seneca on books 31 



200 Index. 

PAGE 

Shakspeare 66, ii6, 158 

Sidney's " Arcadia " 113 

Smiles and Tears . . . . r 173 

Smith, Horace 63, 66 

Smith, Sydney , , . 135, 142 

Social Salutations 132 

Soils, Antonio de 20 

Song literature . 33 

Spanish ballads 38 

Spencer, Herbert 95 

"Star-spangled Banner " 50 

Steele, Richard . . . . 68 

Sterne on reading 29 

Stovve's " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 114 

St. Pierre , .... 114 

Survival of Books • 108 

Symbolism of Flowers 147 

Sympathy, Local 66 

Thomas ^ Kempis 116 

Time 187 

" Times," London {note) 16 

Tin trumpet. The 66 

Tuckerman, H. T 64, 151 

Twilight hour 191 

Walton, Izaak 72,116 

Whittier, J. G 129 

Wilson, J 164 

Wordsworth 122 

Xenophon 141 

"Yankee Doodle" , , . . 48 



WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY AND THE 
SOCIAL. 

By FREDERICK SAUNDERS. 

Popular edition, revised, and illustrated with over fifty 
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*i^ Copies for sale at all first-class bookstores^ or will be 
for^varded free , 07t receipt of price, by the publisher, 

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2 and 3 Bible House, New York. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 

II. 

EVENINGS WITH THE SACRED POETS. 

Recently revised and enlarged, bringing the work down 
to date. One volume, 8vo, 574 pages, handsomely bound 
in cloth, extra, ^2.00. 

*' Mr. Saunders has so ably and satisfactorily performed his 
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indeed done that for which the thanks of Christian readers are 
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literature, this book deserves to live, since it illustrates what has 
always been the most powerful and intimate phase of religion, — 
the expression by song. Those who love pleasant things in books 
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" Exquisite taste, extensive reading, and rare familiarity with 
bibliography shine in these elegant pages. It is a book to be 
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** A complete picture of the sacred poetry and hymnology of 
the Christian ages. Altogether, v/e know of no selection of sacred 
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* quiet talks ' are almost always interesting, and convey a pretty 
fair idea of the history of religious poetry, and the characteristics 
of different schools. We dismiss the work with cordial praise for 
its excellent spirit and general good workmanship." — New-York 
Tribune. 

*' Beginning with the poetry of the Bible, Mr. Saunders brings 
us down to the present day, culling from the sacred poets some 
of their choicest verses, and giving us just enough to provoke a 
most tantalizing appetite for more." — Harpers Monthly. 

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

III. 

PASTIIVIE PAPERS. 

One volume, 121110, cloth, extra, ^i.oo ; paper covers, 50 cts. 

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and the Hterature of power. Mr. Saunders of the Astor Library 
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mind, and 

* Ease the anguish of a torturing hour.' 

In his * calad for the Solitary and the Social,' he produced the 
first proof of his ability in such recreative essays. After several 
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BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

IV. 

THE STORY OF SOME FAMOUS BOOKS. 

i2mo, forming volume 4 of " The Book-Lover's Library." 
Cloth, extra, ^1.25 ; large paper, ^2.50. 

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well. No book-lover's library is complete without his * Story of 
some Famous Books,' " — New Princeton Review. 

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